THE father of one of the servicemen killed when an RAF plane exploded over Afghanistan said a meeting at the Ministry of Defence had not produced answers for the families.

Graham Knight, whose son, Sergeant Ben Knight, was one of 14 servicemen, including four from Merseyside, killed in the incident, in September, 2006, met Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell with other relatives of the victims.

He said: “The minister said he is going to write to us with answers to a lot of the questions we asked.

“He also said he will address some of the more technical issues when he speaks to the House of Commons in December.

“We asked if action will be taken against individuals and he said he couldn’t comment on that because of legal issues. All he could say was it is being looked at.

“We feel it’s been a long time since the crash and it should have been looked into before.”

Mr Knight and his wife, Trish, had earlier said they will seek a criminal prosecution after a report into the disaster suggested potential criminality in the conduct of specific named individuals.

The report by Charles Haddon-Cave, QC – entitled The Loss Of RAF Nimrod Xv230, A Failure Of Leadership, Culture And Priorities – strongly criticised the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and BAE Systems and QinetiQ for a botched safety review of the aircraft before the crash.

Mr and Mrs Knight have also made a formal application to Kevin Myres, deputy chief executive officer of the HSE, to investigate the Ministry of Defence for failing to ensure the airworthiness of the aircraft and failure to comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSW Act).

Mr Haddon-Cave concluded it was a preventable accident and said a safety review of the ageing Nimrod fleet, completed a year earlier, was a “lamentable job” that was “riddled with errors” and failed to identify serious design flaws.