To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes have been made since 1994 to the rules under which deceased Royal Air Force aircrew can be found guilty of gross negligence; whether a finding of gross negligence could have been made in respect of the Chinook crash if the current rules had applied at the time of the crash; and if he will make a statement. (310015)

[holding answer 12 January 2010]: In 1997 the relevant service regulations were changed to remove the express attribution of blame and although Boards of Inquiry were still able to find that “human factors” were the reason for an accident, any questions of culpability on the part of aircrew would be dealt with separately through the disciplinary or administrative action system, if appropriate. If these rules had been in force at the time of the Chinook accident the Board of Inquiry could not have made a finding of gross negligence. With the introduction of a new system of Service Inquiries in October 2008 under the Armed Forces Act 2006 which brought in procedures common across all three services and replaced the old Board of Inquiry system, the rules continued the principle that Service Inquiries are not to explicitly attribute blame or legal liability. If any question of culpability were to arise, it would have to be dealt with through the disciplinary system, although clearly this would not arise in the case of deceased personnel.