Two Ministry of Defence internal reports recommended fitting explosion-suppressant foam to protect fuel tanks on all the RAF’s Hercules transport aircraft but neither was acted upon, it emerged yesterday.

No action was taken until ten servicemen were killed in a Hercules that exploded over Iraq after a fuel tank in one of the wings was pierced by sustained enemy ground fire on January 30, 2005.

The existence of the two reports, which were circulated to key military headquarters in 2002 and 2003, was revealed by a coroner after the reopening of the servicemen’s inquest at Trowbridge town hall in Wiltshire.

One was a review published in January 2002 by the MoD’s Tactical Analysis Team. The second, entitled Basra Area Airfield Study, was published in March 2003. David Masters, the Wiltshire coroner, said the two reports were distributed to RAF Strike Command at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, the Air Warfare Centre at RAF Waddington in Cambridgeshire and the Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, northwest London.

An MoD official said that judging by the distribution list, the reports had not been passed to ministers. The inquest was adjourned until today.

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