The evidence against two special forces pilots who were blamed for crashing an RAF Chinook helicopter into the Mull of Kintyre, killing all 29 on board, was too thin to reach such a damning verdict, campaigners for the servicemen claim today.

On the 15th anniversary of the crash, in which 25 of the most senior counter-terrorist officials from Northern Ireland died, the campaigners accuse the Ministry of Defence of obstructing all attempts to obtain a review of the verdict.

Two air marshals ruled that Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook were guilty of gross negligence, following the publication of a board of inquiry report which uncovered no direct cause for the crash. The board’s report did not blame the pilots. The senior RAF officers said there could be no reason other than negligence why the helicopter had flown into the Mull of Kintyre, although there was thick low cloud in the area on that fatal day.

Omar Malik of the Mull of Kintyre Steering Group, which has support from MPs from all parties, said: “The MoD has consistently demonstrated its greatest, some would say its only, area of expertise — that of blocking inquiries into its conduct.”

He added: “The air marshals’ verdict never met the stipulated level of proof for a negligence verdict. There never was the required incontrovertible evidence.”

The group has been pushing the MoD to accept what it claims is new evidence that proves the Chinook HC2 was suffering from known technical failings. The RAF’s test establishment at Boscombe Down had “unequivocally recommended its grounding,” Mr Malik said.

According to the campaigners, this particular version of the Chinook suffered from “potentially disastrous breakages which had ocurred in the flight control system”, engines had “shut themselves down” and engine connections in the cabin roof were known to work loose. “Every 15 minutes a crew member had to go to check them,” Mr Malik said.

“Any one of these unresolved technical problems could have caused the accident,” he said.

The Mull of Kintyre Group is not claiming to be able to prove that pilot negligence was not the cause of the accident, but that “there is insufficient evidence upon which to base any objective verdict”.

“The remarkable thinness of the evidence means that it is absolutely impossible to achieve the level of proof required by RAF regulations for a verdict of negligence,” Mr Malik said.

The Commons Defence Committee and Public Accounts Committee have both cast doubt on the verdict following investigations of their own into the crash. The PAC accused the MoD of “unwarrantable arrogance” in its refusal to withdraw the verdict of gross negligence against the pilots.

The MoD has said that it would review the verdict if there was new evidence. But fresh evidence claimed by the campaigners has always been rejected. Although successive defence secretaries have turned down requests for a change in the verdict, a number of senior retired politicians have given their backing to the campaigners. Sir John Major, former Prime Minister, and Sir Malcolm Rifkind who was Defence Secretary at the time of the crash, have both called for the gross negligence accusation to be set aside.

In December last year, John Hutton, the current Defence Secretary, rejected the case for the verdict to be withdrawn.

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