An inquest into the death of 10 British military personnel in a RAF C-130 Hercules crash has today heard the comments of an RAF pilot, who said that he raised safety issues three years prior to the 2005 incident.

Fuel Tank Hit

The Hercules crashed after receiving a direct fuel tank hit while carrying out an aerial sortie close to Baghdad, Iraq.

According to Squadron Leader Christopher Seal, the high level of reliability shown by the RAF Hercules fleet prior to the crash had given flight crews a “false sense of security.”

ESF/ Explosive-Suppressant Foam

Calls made by him for RAF Hercules to be fitted with ESF (Explosive-Suppressant Foam), he added, were not acted on.

At the time, no other single incident in Iraq had killed so many British personnel at one time.

Among the fatalities were eight servicemen from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire – the air force’s main Hercules base.

Squadron Leader Seal attributed the failure to retro-fit the C-130s with ESF to factors of money, and the fact that the aircraft would be temporarily operationally unavailable.

Subsequently, he discovered that the cost, per aircraft, was £600,000, and the ‘off-time’ required, around five weeks.

DERA Document

Having been shown a 14-year-old DERA (Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) document, highlighting how the UK was ‘lagging behind the US’ when it came to ESF, Mr Seal said he was not familiar with the paper until now.

“I'm gob-smacked, astonished", he stated.

Mr Seal discovered ESF after a pilot within the US military spoke to him on the subject.

The Squadron Leader was deployed in Afghanistan when, in 2002, he wrote to his superiors. This action, however, brought with it subsequent admonishment, he said.

Ten Killed in Crash

The following ten members of the British armed forces were killed in the Hercules crash:

• Flight Lieutenant David Stead
• Flight Lieutenant Andrew Smith
• Master Engineer Gary Nicholson
• Flight Sergeant Mark Gibson
• Flight Lieutenant Paul Pardoel
• Chief Technician Richard Brown
• Corporal David Williams
• Sergeant Robert O'Connor
• Squadron Leader Patrick Marshall
• Acting Lieutenant Corporal Steven Jones

Earlier today, David Masters, the coroner involved in the inquest, stated that it would re-start in October, as the current three weeks proved insufficient time to hear the words of all the witnesses.

Source – Armed Forces International’s Aviation Expert

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