Government's claim Chinook crash families are 'out of time' is 'morally indefensible', says solicitor ahead of High Court battle

July 13th 2026

The families of those killed in the RAF Chinook disaster on the Mull of Kintyre will attend the High Court in London tomorrow (Tuesday 14th) in a landmark legal battle in which the Government will seek to block their application for a Judicial Review by arguing that their search for truth and justice has come too late.

The hearing, on Tuesday 14 July, will determine whether the families can proceed with a Judicial Review into the Ministry of Defence's refusal to establish for the first time, an independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the 1994 crash, in which 29 people died, including 25 of the UK’s most senior intelligence experts.

At the centre of the case is what the families describe as a Kafkaesque argument by government lawyers: that they are "out of time" to challenge decisions made about ZD576 and the Mark 2 Chinook based on information about safety issues that was never publicly disclosed by the MoD in the first place, or provided by them for scrutiny by any previous investigations and has only come to light in the intervening decades.

Until 2024 the families were not even organised as a single campaign. Many had never met one another. It was only after a BBC documentary brought together previously scattered evidence and prompted fresh technical investigation that the Chinook Justice Campaign was formed.

Relatives of the victims only learned about the latest evidence because it was forensically uncovered and collated by aeronautical and technical experts, including the late David Hill and former RAF test pilot Robert Burke.

Internal MoD memos obtained by the campaign show that the helicopter had been grounded the day before, was deemed “positively dangerous” and “not to be relied upon in any way, whatsoever” by MoD test pilots and test engineers, and had a catalogue of technical issues.

And yet a decision was taken to put 29 people on board the fateful flight on June 2nd 1994.

Mark Stephens CBE, solicitor for the families and part of a pro-bono legal team from Howard Kennedy and Doughty Street Chambers, said: " At the heart of the case is the question that continues to haunt the families: who authorised the flight, what did they know, and why was Chinook ZD576 allowed to take off at all?

"The Government's position is effectively that because decades have passed, throughout which the MoD have denied families access to documents and information, the courts should refuse to examine whether the State allowed an aircraft with unresolved airworthiness concerns to fly.

"Their argument appears to be that if the State keeps the evidence long enough, the families lose the right to ask questions. That is not justice. That is secrecy rewarded by the passage of time. That is morally indefensible and, in a democracy governed by the rule of law, that cannot be allowed to stand.

“The timing of the claim is therefore not evidence of indifference or inactivity. Rather, it reflects the practical reality that the families were geographically dispersed, didn’t know each other, were not part of a group, and lacked both the information and organisational capacity required to bring this type of challenge until they got together in 2024.”

The families’ legal case does not seek to determine the cause of the crash. Instead, it asks why an aircraft known to have serious airworthiness concerns was allowed to take off – putting so many service personnel in danger, particularly when it was “mandated” according to Lord Philip’s official review which cleared the pilots, to remain on the ground.

The Government argues the claim should have been brought shortly after the Mull of Kintyre Review concluded in 2011.

The families say that argument – put forward by a government supposedly committed to candour and Hillsborough Law - ignores the fact that it took a BBC documentary team and investigative journalistic expertise to expose the cover up.

Niven Phoenix, whose father Ian died in the crash, said: "For decades, many of our families trusted official investigations and explanations because they had no reason to believe vital information had been withheld. Then they learned about the lack of airworthiness of the Mark 2 and that papers had been sealed for 100 years.

"As more evidence has emerged, suspicion has grown. We have repeatedly tried to engage constructively with ministers. We presented detailed evidence. We asked for dialogue. We asked for an independent review.

"Now the Government's answer is that we've simply come too late.

"That argument cannot be allowed to win. If the State can conceal information for decades and then argue families are out of time to challenge it once the truth begins to emerge, something is fundamentally wrong.

"This case isn't just about Chinook. It's about whether any family can ever obtain justice if a public body is allowed to rely on delay after withholding the very information needed to uncover the truth. Ironically it goes to the very heart of Hillsborough Law which the Government says that it is committed to- the situation we find ourselves in is beyond belief."

The hearing follows months of renewed campaigning by the Chinook Justice Campaign after former Defence Secretary Sir Liam Fox, together with members of the independent panel that cleared the pilots in 2011 including Baroness Helen Liddell and Lord Malcolm Bruce, publicly expressed concern that they were not given the full picture regarding the aircraft's airworthiness. 

Sir Liam Fox joined the families to deliver a letter to Downing Street calling for a fresh review into the case, independent of the MoD - saying he believed a cover-up may have taken place.

 Just two months ago, an FOI sought by British Forces Broadcasting Service revealed the lengths to which the Air Chief Marshall Sir William Wratten - who blamed the pilots – went, to avoid revisiting the findings of the Board of Inquiry.  It shows senior officials actively engaging with dissenting technical views, rebutting alternative explanations for the crash and seeking to maintain confidence in the Board of Inquiry conclusions.

The families – supported by the Hillsborough Law Now campaign - say the case highlights the need for a statutory Duty of Candour under the proposed Hillsborough Law, arguing that public authorities should never be able to benefit from withholding information before relying on procedural time limits to defeat attempts to establish the truth.