Ajax armoured vehicle safety issue highlights starkly similar unacceptable MoD practices which killed 29 in RAF Chinook crash, say families

Expert warns poor equipment acquisition practices continue – putting service personnel at risk - with lessons not learned from 1994

How the BBC reported the story

Relatives of those killed in the Chinook helicopter crash have expressed their horror at the stark similarities between the 1994 tragedy on the Mull of Kintyre and the latest revelations over the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle.

The announcement that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has paused use of Ajax after around 30 soldiers suffered hearing and vibration injuries during a training exercise is deeply alarming. 

For the families of the 29 service personnel who died on Chinook ZD576 the parallels are chilling: once again, service personnel are being exposed to equipment where safety concerns have been ignored previously— and once again, it seems, problems were only addressed after harm occurred. 

Niven Phoenix, whose father Ian was killed, said: “I am horrified – but not at all surprised - at the stark similarities with the Chinook in that it involves known risks being ignored and transferred to the crews and occupants.

“The Ajax safety problems – which date back certainly to 2021, if not even earlier, highlight a very long running and dangerous sore at the heart of the MoD and its unacceptable equipment acquisition practices which have gone on for more than 30 years.

“Just like the Chinook crash which killed 29 of our relatives in an unairworthy Mark 2 helicopter in 1994, lessons have simply not been learned.

“That helicopter, which we now know from leaked evidence was unairworthy, crashed. It was put into service and into the air despite known safety issues, killing all on board, including my father.

“Now, with new Ajax vehicles causing illness and injury, the same disregard for soldier safety has repeated itself. Thankfully none of these injured soldiers were killed, but that is not a reason to ignore the facts and the dangers and the MoD must reform. It’s startling how arrogance and indifference bleeds into all facets of MOD causing unnecessary harm to our troops”

The Chinook Justice Campaign calls on the MoD to:

1.    Commission a full, independent audit of all current acquisition and safety-assurance procedures for military equipment not just those already implicated in incidents.

2.    Launch a new judge-led inquiry into the 1994 Chinook Mark 2 crash — with immediate release of all documents still sealed until 2094, and a transparent re-evaluation of the evidence.

For the last 18 months, repeated requests to meet ministers, including the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary, have been rejected.

Now three MoD ministers – Lord Coaker, Al Carns, and Louise Sandher-Jones – as well as the Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones have agreed to meet the families on Tuesday December 16th at the Ministry of Defence.

Mark Stephens, from Howard Kennedy, lawyer for the Chinook Justice Campaign, which is seeking a Judicial Review into the MoD’s failure to order a public inquiry into crash, added: “These are not isolated “glitches,” but symptoms of a systemic failure to prioritise the safety and lives of servicemen and women.

“It highlights yet another group of military families who are being burdened with health issues caused by the failure of MoD accountability.

 “The British public — and the families of those who gave their lives and those who have recently been harmed on the Ajax vehicles — deserve truth, justice accountability, and much needed reform of the Ministry of Defence and its acquisition practices.

Technical advisor to the Chinook Justice Campaign, former MoD aeronautical engineer David Hill has written several books on the crash and the MoD including Citadel of Waste which refers to the Ajax fleet, the MoD’s rejection of a proposal to establish a hearing protection team/programme and “in particular, savings at the expense of safety… (which) …cast a lingering pall over equipment acquisition and aviation safety in particular.”

Hill writes: “The financial waste remains astronomical. But far more important is the waste of life and the refusal to prevent recurrence.”