Lawyers for the families of the 14 servicemen killed in an RAF Nimrod that exploded over Afghanistan are considering manslaughter charges against two British defence companies.

BAE Systems and QinetiQ were criticised in a damning official report for failing to spot catastrophic design flaws in the Nimrod MR2 surveillance aircraft before the crash in 2006.

Charles Haddon-Cave, QC, who was commissioned to investigate the circumstances leading to the crash, blamed the two companies for failing to carry out rigorous checks. BAE Systems and QinetiQ were involved in a Nimrod safety study for which the Ministry of Defence paid £400,000.

John Cooper, the barrister representing the families, told The Times: “We are considering whether there should be a corporate manslaughter case. I think this is something the Crown Prosecution Service should be looking at, but if they don’t do it, we will consider a private prosecution,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the CPS said: “If anyone has evidence [of alleged corporate manslaughter] they should present it to the police who will investigate the matter and then decide whether to refer it to the CPS. There has to be a police investigation first.”

Mr Cooper said: “The main thing the families have been seeking is accountability and responsibility for this tragedy. What we see in this report is not only information which will be of great assistance to the families in their civil claim, but we will be considering corporate manslaughter issues as far as the companies are concerned.”

The safety review of the ageing Nimrod MR2 fleet, completed the year before the crash, had been a “lamentable job” that was “riddled with errors”, Mr Haddon-Cave, an aviation lawyer, said in his report.

In a statement BAE Systems said: “We acknowledge that there were a number of failings. We accept full responsibility and apologise unreservedly.” The company said it had implemented improvements in the course of the review by Mr Haddon-Cave.

Yesterday Graham Love, the chief executive of QinetiQ for the past four years, announced that he would leave the company next month. Qinetiq said that his departure was not linked to the Nimrod report.

The families are already set to go to the High Court on December 17 to ask judges to consider the level of liability the MoD should face for the deaths of the 14 men.

“The MoD has accepted liability and that it will have to pay compensation but it’s very difficult to quantify,” Mr Cooper said.

There was nothing in law, he said, which specified the financial value of a human life. Calculations would have to based on the amount each family was dependent on those who died.

However, Mr Cooper said that after the publication of the scathing Nimrod report, he would now be seeking “punitive damages”.

“We are already seeking aggravated damages but there’s clearly a case now for punitive damages as well,” he said.

The families’ lawyers also want to raise the issue of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights — the “right to life” — as a way of compensating the families, although Mr Cooper said that this was being resisted by the MoD.

Trish Knight, mother of Sergeant Ben Knight, one of the 14 victims, said: “What we wanted was accountability for what happened, this was not about seeking compensation.

“However, we thought when we got the review [by Mr Haddon-Cave] that that would be the end of it, but clearly it’s not the end. It’s just the beginning.”

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