Families hear last words of loved ones in air crash

May 8 2008 By Simon Evans and Laura May, Daily Post correspondents

FAMILIES of 14 British servicemen yesterday heard a radio recording of the last moments before their loved ones’ RAF Nimrod spy plane went down in Afghanistan.

Oxford Coroner’s Court was cleared so they could hear the cockpit recording from Nimrod XV 230 in private.

The 37-year-old reconnaissance aircraft exploded in a ball of flames just minutes after undergoing air-to-air refuelling near Kandahar on September 2, 2006.

The inquest into the 14 men’s deaths, including Flt Lt Allan James Squires, 39, of Clatterbridge, Wirral, Flt Lt Steven Swarbrick, 28, of Formby, and Sgt John Joseph Langton, 29, of Grassendale, began on Tuesday with a visit by the court, including the families, to RAF Brize Norton, in Oxford- shire, to view a Nimrod plane.

Until yesterday, (Wed May 7) the families had seen only a transcript of the stricken crew’s airborne communications.

Speaking later, the father of one of the airmen killed des- cribed hearing a recording of his son’s last moments as "very traumatic".

Michael Bell, the father of Flt Sgt Gerard Bell, said: "They were professional and did not show any emotion. They did their job in the way you would expect British ser- vicemen to operate. There was no panic in their voices. In their minds, they were going to land at Kandahar, then the tape went blank."

An RAF Board of Inquiry (BoI) into the loss of the plane found ageing components and a lack of modern fire suppres- sants were among the "contri- butory factors" which led to the accident.

The deaths of the service-men was the heaviest loss of life to be suffered by British forces in a single incident since the Falklands War.

The BoI found that the most probable cause of the crash was an escape of fuel during the air-to-air refuelling, either as a result of an overflow or a leakage from the aircraft’s fuel system.

The fuel flowed back into a dry bay near the aircraft’s No 7 fuel tank, and ignited after coming into con-tact with a hot air pipe.

The crew had no means of attacking the principal fire and had no choice but to try an emergency descent to the Kandahar airbase but, at 3,000ft, the aircraft was seen by a RAF Harrier pilot to explode in flames, six minutes after the blaze broke out.

The remaining nine RAF personnel killed were Flight Lieutenant Steven Johnson, Flt Lt Leigh Anthony Mitchelmore, Flt Lt Gareth Rodney Nicholas, Flight Sergeant Gary Wayne Andrews, Flt Sgt Stephen Beattie, Flt Sgt Gerard Martin Bell and Flt Sgt Adrian Davies, Sergeant Benjamin James Knight, and Sgt Gary Paul Quilliam.

Lance Corporal Oliver Simon Dicketts, from the Parachute Regiment, and Royal Marine Joseph David Windall also died.