"The protracted events began in 1995 when the MoD ordered the helicopters"; so said the reporter on Channel Four TV News this week commentating on the curious tale of the RAF Chinook helicopters that have languished in a hanger for 13 years - apparently unfit to fly.
However the saga started earlier than that, as we revealed in 1993, when the Celtic League exposed in CARN magazine (the journal of the League) the curious story of MoD officials trawling the helicopter junkyards of the world in a desperate attempt to obtain medium and heavy lift helicopters to support overstretched RAF and Army commitments in Ireland.
We revealed the curious story of what we dubbed 'Britain's Bombay Take-Away' in which MoD officials had tried to buy back disused Westland WG 30 helicopters languishing on an airfield in India after being supplied and paid for by the UK as overseas aid. On the same shopping trip, we reported, the MoD officials visited Australia and tried to buy seven Chinook helicopters - but the sale fell through.
It was only following this failure to buy used helicopters that they turned to Boeing with the order for the 'choppers' which are now the subject of what the UK media described as the "one of the most incompetent procurements of all time".
When we revealed this extraordinary saga almost fourteen years ago the MoD said our allegations (reported briefly in some Ulster newspapers) were "extraordinary". However four years later they did own-up to the purchasing mission.
It seems this saga of incompetence which has bedevilled the MoD for fifteen years still has some distance to run.
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J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League
06/06/08
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