Read Michael Smith's blog on the Nimrod crash

For Graham Knight, the publication this afternoon of an official inquiry report into the loss of the RAF Nimrod spy plane which crashed in Afghanistan last September will be bittersweet.

Mr Knight, the father of Sergeant Ben Knight, one of the 14 servicemen killed in the crash, has spent the past 15 months investigating the crash of the ageing Nimrod MR2 reconnaissance aircraft, with the biggest single loss of life by British forces since the Falklands War.

He said that his campaign was simply one of being a parent who wanted justice for his son, who was 25 when he died along with his colleagues while on an intelligence-gathering mission near Kandahar.

“I was Ben’s dad. I couldn’t be here to prevent it happening but I’m here now and will do all I can to find out what happened to my son,” Mr Knight told the Press Association.

“I feel the crash was down to incompetence and spending cuts. It is very difficult to cope when you feel he died as a result of failures by the Government.”

The 55-year-old from Somerset, who lives with his wife and two surviving sons, has used Freedom of Information requests to discover more about the background to the accident.

Mr Knight now believes that the explosion was caused when a fuel leak was accidentally ignited by a blast of over-heated air in the bomb bay. The crew's fate was sealed because there was no mechanism for putting it out.

He has uncovered evidence that two years before the accident, the Ministry of Defence did not act on manufacturer BAE Systems’ recommendations that a fire detection system should be fitted.

He has said that the Nimrods should have been grounded after the explosion.

“I became suspicious about three days after my son Ben was killed and I went to Inverness where he was based to stay at his house," he said.

“One of his colleagues said ’that could’ve been me’. He said that they too had a bomb bay fire, but he managed to get down in time,’’ Mr Knight explained.

“Very few aeroplanes explode in mid-air, it usually happens just after take-off or landing. I started to think there must’ve been something catastrophic wrong.

“I later talked to another colleague [of Ben’s] and he said Nimrods leaked like a sieve. I got these little hints here and there and headed off in that direction.”

“The more I have dug, the deeper the conspiracy gets - essentially, I think the major failures have been down to communication problems.”

Earlier this year, Mr Knight released a series of leaked e-mails which said came from senior RAF officers and which claimed that the XV230 had “fuel leak issues” which needed to be rectified.

“It is quite obvious that an aircraft would not suddenly burst into a ball of flames,” Mr Knight said.

“BAE Systems also did a safety report in 2004 saying there were areas of concern. If there was a fire there would be no way to extinguish it, the report said.

“Since launching my investigations I have had a lot of people contact me from the RAF and MoD.

“There are so many people within the organisations who are not happy with what has been going on. It has opened a horrifying can of worms.”

Mr Knight said the families of the dead airmen would be pushing for a pre-inquest hearing and is waiting to hear from their barrister about his findings and their relevance to the hearing.

Flight Sergeant Adrian Davies, Flight Lieutenant Lee Anthony Mitchelmore, Flt Lt Gareth Rodney Nicholas, Sgt Benjamin James Knight, Sgt Gary Paul Quilliam, Flt Lt Steven Swarbrick, Sgt John Joseph Langton, Flt Sgt Stephen Beattie, Flt Lt Allan James Squires, Flt Sgt Gary Wayne Andrews, Flt Sgt Gerard Martin Bell, Flt Lt Steven Johnson, Marine Joseph David Windall, Royal Marines, and L Cpl Oliver Simon Dicketts, Parachute Regiment, all died in the crash.

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