Former RAF test pilot who helped clear the wrongly blamed Chinook crash pilots dies aged 86

Retired Sqn Ldr Robert Burke, 86, of Hampshire, died on Monday October 26 after a short illness, the Chinook Justice Campaign confirmed. Despite orders from his superiors to stay silent about the 1994 Mull of Kintyre crash — which claimed the lives of 25 intelligence experts and four special forces crew — he defied that instruction to expose airworthiness failings in the Chinook Mark 2. His evidence helped overturn the posthumous gross negligence verdicts against Flt Lts Richard Cook and Jonathan Tapper, a verdict the UK Government finally set aside 17 years after the disaster.

Burke disclosed in a 2024 BBC documentary that the doomed flight had been a 'show flight' to prove the aircraft was safe, despite test pilots calling it 'positively dangerous'.

Campaigner Susan Phoenix, who has pursued justice for 32 years, described it as 'heartbreaking' that Burke died before the MoD ever acknowledged the truth.

Nicola Rawcliffe, a Norfolk campaigner whose brother Chris Dockerty was killed in the crash, said the campaign would 'fight on until we get justice in tribute to him'.