So far all we have seen from the MoD is the same briefing notes going round and round and they come up with the same answers

Mike Tapper

Mr Tapper said he hoped the committee would add a fresh approach to the investigation.

He said: "I have to say the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Air Force will not be at all happy with this, as was witnessed last night.

"But at the end of the day they must bow to the due process of law and the power of parliament."

The helicopter had been carrying Northern Ireland security intelligence personel to a conference in Fort William in Scotland at the time of the crash

The cause of the 1994 crash has been the source of controversy

Speculation centred on whether human error or the Chinook's Fadec computer engine software caused the crash.

The MoD has until now resisted re-opening the case, in spite of suggestions that faulty software may have been to blame for the crash.

Lord Chalfont, a former Labour foreign office minister and chair of the Mull of Kintyre Action Group, said he believed the verdicts were wrong and based on "subjective judgement".

Under RAF regulations at the time of the inquiry, the airmen should have been found negligent only if there was "absolutely no doubt whatsoever", he pointed out.

Mr Tapper said: "So far all we have seen from the MoD is the same briefing notes going round and round and they come up with the same answers."

Lord Chalfont: "Draw a line under issue"

He said: "I think this is a considerable step forward and I hope it will cause us very soon now to draw a line under what has been going on, after all, for over six years."

The widow of one of the senior RUC officers killed in the Chinook crash also welcomed the prospect of a new inquiry.

Susan Phoenix, whose husband Ian, an RUC detective superintendent, died, said she had not been happy with the earlier findings.

Resolve the issue

"It worried me terribly that so many people of a high standing in society and government have been allowed to get away with making subjective judgments," she said.

"Coming from the scientific world, if I had written a report with a subjective judgment, as made by the two air vice marshals, it would have been thrown out."

She said she did not understand how they had been allowed to over-rule the fatal accident inquiry, which did not find the pilots guilty.

It was time for someone to have the resolve to get the issue resolved once and for all, she added.