Sir.-Regarding the RAF Odiham Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994, when 29 lives were lost, almost 10 years have passed without the Ministry of Defence (MoD) offering any absolution to the pilots whom it found "guilty of negligence".

Two years ago, a House of Lords inquiry by a select committee deter-mined the MoD was not justified in that verdict and previous minister, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, accepted a mistake was made.

Afterwards, Defence Minister Mr Geoffrey Hoon told the Commons there was no evidence to justify overturning the original findings, refusing to clear the names of the RAF pilots. Perhaps he was not able to understand evidence given by Sqn Ldr Robert Burke, a witness not called to the original inquiry but who spoke pertinently to the Lords inquiry of those software problems which caused the Aircraft and Arm-ament Experimental Establishment (AAEE) to doubt the performance of the version of Chinook flown.

There was never enough evidence for the MoD to arrive at the assump-tions and conclusion it did. The air officer Commanding-in-Chief Strike Command Sir William Wratten is understood to have written that "without the irrefutable evidence of an Accident Data Recorder (ADR) and a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), there is inevitably a degree of speculation as to the precise detail of events prior to impact".

An ADR, had one been fitted, would have recorded aircraft systems' behaviour, including faults from problems such as, for example, with the Full Authority Digital Control software (FADEC). A fault signal would bring an instant response from the engines, even if that signal was erroneous.

A voice track on the CVR, again not fitted, would have allowed an inquiry to replay crew commentary on events which might be quite normal or may reveal catastrophic fault conditions or any alarm caused by visual illusions in sudden "white-out conditions in fog and cloud".

When so much doubt exists, it is surely wrong to continue to accept a "negligence finding".

-Mr E Howard, Lees Hill, South Warnborough.