BENSON The most expensive troop-carrying helicopters bought by the Ministry of Defence will not be ready for operational deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan until 2009.

The continuing delay affecting the eight Chinook Mark 3s, ordered from Boeing in 1995 for £252 million but grounded ever since their delivery in 2001, was disclosed yesterday by Lord Drayson, a Defence Minister. The Chinooks were supposed to be for Britain’s special forces but then the RAF realised that they failed to meet Britain’s airworthiness standards. The Public Accounts Committee described the affair as one of the “worst examples of equipment acquisition”.

The MoD finally gave up looking for ways of bringing the helicopters up to the standard for special operations flying and decided to reconfigure them as standard battlefield-support Chinooks.

The minister was speaking at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire after unveiling six Merlin troop-carrying helicopters bought from Denmark, which are to be converted into battlefield aircraft capable of withstanding ground fire in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled