MoD accused of overruling warnings
Warnings about the safety of Royal Navy helicopters were overruled by the Ministry of Defence resulting in the death of six British servicemen, it has been reported.
An unnamed civil servant alleged that he refused to declare the Royal Navy's Sea King Mk7 helicopters airworthy, but was overruled by superiors trying to save money.
He told the Sunday Times he raised concerns about the aircraft two years before two Sea Kings collided off Iraq in 2003, killing six Royal Navy officers and one American serviceman.
Anti-collision lights on the helicopters had been replaced with strobe lights that hindered the pilot's vision so they switched them off.
That led to the pilots losing sight of each other before the collision.
The mother of Marc Lawrence, 26, one of the Royal Navy officers killed, accused the MoD of a "whitewash".
Ann Lawrence said: "The inquest was a case of people forgetting where they were and losing key papers. It was a joke."
It follows reports that Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, the most senior British officer to have died in Afghanistan, had warned his superiors that helicopter operations there were "not fit for purpose".
Also, earlier this week, Charles Haddon-Cave QC published a highly critical report into a fatal 2006 Nimrod crash, which killed 14 service personnel, accusing the MoD of sacrificing safety to cut costs.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Mr Haddon-Cave's report identifies numerous weaknesses in the airworthiness system, which we will address urgently. But he has confirmed that his report, which relates to the Nimrod, does not raise concerns over the airworthiness of other fleets in service with the RAF."
