Six month wait for Hercules families

By Caroline Wyatt BBC defence correspondent

The plane was flying at low level, through a known ambush zone

It was the largest loss of life to the RAF in a hostile act since World War II.

Nine RAF personnel and one soldier died when an RAF Hercules C-130K aircraft was hit by enemy fire in Iraq on 30 January 2005.

The inquest, under the Wiltshire coroner David Masters, began in April, followed by an adjournment for several months over the summer, during which time several vital documents came to light.

Hercules XV179 from RAF Lyneham's 47 Squadron was hit by after flying a special forces mission earlier in the day.

Enemy fire from a medium-calibre anti-aircraft weapon, which pierced a fuel tank and caused the ullage - the highly-flammable fuel-vapour-and-air mix created as fuel is used - to explode and blow off half of the right wing.

Intelligence failure

The crew sent a last desperate radio message before the aircraft crashed into the desert, 25 miles (40km) north-west of Baghdad, killing all 10 men on board.

Witnesses have told the inquest that the crew were flying low to avoid the threat of surface-to-air missiles.

It also heard that there was a significant failure to pass on intelligence warnings that two US helicopters had been shot at in the same area by Iraqi insurgents just hours before.

I believe the crew would have survived the attack if foam had been in the fuel tanks Nigel Gilbert, RAF Hercules pilot

But the main issue at the the inquest centred on why explosion suppressant foam, or ESF, had not been fitted to Britain's Hercules fleet, despite earlier warnings the planes were vulnerable to heavy machine-gun fire.

Witnesses were asked why senior commanders had not acted on the safety recommendation.

RAF Wing Cdr John Reid, who was president of the RAF Board of Inquiry into the incident, apologised from the witness stand to the families of the dead for his own lack of knowledge of ESF as a safety measure.

He also criticised the failure of senior officers who did know about it to act on recommendations that ESF be fitted.

Moved to tears

Several of Wing Cdr John Reid's friends and colleagues died in the crash, and his evidence and apology moved many in the court to tears.

The inquest heard a 2002 report sent to senior RAF figures said that Hercules' wing tanks were the most vulnerable part of the planes, liable to explode if hit by small arms fire.

The report was sent to RAF Strike Command, the Air Warfare Centre at RAF Waddington and Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, which oversees military operations abroad.

The inquest saw footage of a tank without safety foam exploding

It said "a potential solution to reduce risk is to retro-fit all C-130 aircraft with dynamic foam for the wing fuel tanks".

A 2003 report said the recommendation still applied. Yet it was not acted upon until after XV179 was shot down.

Wing Cdr Reid told the inquest: "Had the vulnerability been known, then the crew would not have flown in that way - i.e. low level, believed to be about 150ft...

"Had the aircraft been hit at a higher level, it could have given the crew more time to sort something out."

Other crucial evidence given to the inquest came from former RAF Hercules pilot Nigel Gilbert.

He said ESF had been fitted on US Hercules from the mid-1960s, after a plane was shot down in Vietnam, and fitted as standard from 1970 onwards.

He campaigned for better safety measures for Hercules after flying the aircraft in Afghanistan.

Mr Gilbert believes the measure could have saved the men's lives, and told the BBC he could not understand the RAF's or MoD's failure to act on their own internal reports.

For some of the technical people, I don't think foam was 'sexy' Wing Cdr John Reid

"They were only six minutes flying time from an airbase and there's no reason to believe they wouldn't have got back safely."

The inquest also heard that money was not the issue in the decision not to fit the foam.

According to witnesses, extra funds had been made available by the MoD for safety measures.

'No-brainer'

Wing Cdr Reid said he believed that the RAF had focussed more closely on higher-level threats, such as surface-to-air missiles, and chose to fit better armour for cockpits and other high-tech defensive systems, while under-estimating the Hercules' vulnerability to smaller weapons.

However, no paper trail could be found to verify or confirm why the recommendations were not acted upon at the time.

After XV179 was shot down, Wing Cdr Reid said that even before the board of inquiry had concluded its report, the then RAF Commander in Chief told him that fitting ESF was a "no-brainer", and from then on, fitting it became a rapid process.

This week, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support Quentin Davies told Parliament that 74% of the Hercules C-130 fleet had now been fitted with explosion suppressant foam, and that those aircraft not fitted with ESF would shortly begin to be retired from service.

He said all Hercules C-130 aircraft that are routinely deployed on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were now fitted with ESF.

Most of the evidence at the inquest relating to Special Forces activity was given by witnesses speaking from behind a screen and known only by an initial.

Many of the details of the incident itself - such as the height at which the aircraft was flying and the type of weapon that brought it down - were heard in private, with no media present.

EXPLOSIVE SUPPRESSANT FOAM SYSTEM 1. Without foam: Explosive mix of fuel vapour and air above liquid fuel ignites easily. Once this ignites, a compression wave pressurises the remaining gas, increasing the explosion. 2. With foam: Foam expands to fill space in tank as fuel level drops. Vapour ignition is confined to the area close to spark, stopping explosion.

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