Families Mark 32nd Anniversary of 1994 Mull of Kintyre Chinook Crash

Relatives of the 29 people killed in the 1994 RAF Chinook helicopter disaster gathered at the Memorial Garden at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn on Saturday to lay wreaths, days before the 32nd anniversary of the crash. The Chinook went down on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June 1994 while travelling from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Fort George near Inverness.

All 29 people aboard died, including 25 intelligence specialists and four special forces aircrew.

For years the two pilots were held responsible, but that finding was reversed in 2011. The Chinook Justice Campaign has pointed to recently disclosed Ministry of Defence papers which it says show officials knew about significant safety issues with the aircraft.

Des Conroy, whose father Desmond, a detective chief superintendent in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was among those killed, said the truth is being withheld.

"It's quite obvious that there were issues with the aircraft all the way back to 1994 and the aircraft should never have taken off," he said. Conroy added that his father would never have boarded the helicopter had he known its condition. "We want justice, we want an apology from the Government that our loved ones were placed on an aircraft that wasn't released for service," he said.

His sister Patricia Conroy, who was 22 when their father died, described him as "a loving husband, family man" who was hardworking and honest. Jennifer Balmer-Hornby, who lost her father Major Anthony Robert Hornby one week before her tenth birthday, said previous inquiries had focused only on the cause of the crash.

"This is not about the cause of the crash," she said, adding that the families feel "there's more information out there, but they are locking it away".

Ms Eastwood said those who remember the crash also remember the silence that followed and the conspiracy theories that filled the information vacuum. She said the Government has failed the victims and their relatives. "None of these people are liars, their families were heroes, and the state needs to, at the very least, give them the truth," she said.

The families are demanding a full judicial investigation and the release of all related documents, some of which remain classified for a century. They also urged swift implementation of the Hillsborough Law, which would require public officials to be truthful during inquiries. An MoD spokesman said the department continues to engage with the Chinook Justice Campaign.

Defence ministers have met campaign representatives, and the campaign also met the Ministry of Justice victims minister in March. The campaign submitted a formal claim for Judicial Review in September 2025, and the MoD is focused on responding fully to that claim.