INTELLIGENCE No. 268, 3 July 1995 (Vol. 16, No. 14) Publishing since 1980 Copyright ADI 1995. Reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. A one-year subscription (23 issues) is US $280. GREAT BRITAIN: INTELLIGENCE MYSTERIES ON THE SCOTTISH MOORS One year after the crash of a Royal Air Force (RAF) Chinook HC2 helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre in western Scotland, which killed 25 key MI5, Military Intelligence and Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch personnel, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Whitehall issued a short summary of the conclusions of a secret inquiry. The pilots are blamed for "failing in their duty" by flying below a safe clearance height in unsuitable weather, but the summary fails to explain why the pilots made the mistake. The summary suggests they were using Visual Flight Rules, but not why or how they would be doing that in what the report claims were poor flying conditions when they should have been using the technology available to them on board. COMMENT - The MoD's "official version" has been received with "less than enthusiasm" by the RAF. Both pilots, Flight Lt. Richard Cook and Flight Lt. Jonathan Tapper, were experienced veterans of the Ulster campaign who had been trained to fly in all-weather conditions in the Kintyre area. According to several eyewitnesses, the weather at 18h30 on 2 June 1994 was excellent. The recently refitted Chinook was equipped with GPS satellite navigation equipment, plus three independent positioning systems, and forward-impact warning devices for low-level flying. Both the crash and the inquiry have been, and remain, the subject of an official media "gagging order" in the form of a D Notice issued by the MoD on 6 June 1994, while Boeing Helicopter Division in Philadelphia, which built and refitted the aircraft, has been refused access to the crash site. Senior executives such as Madeleine Bush, Boeing's public relations manager in Philadelphia, and her colleague, Jack Satterfield, have been told not to comment on the crash or the inquiry's conclusions. * GREAT BRITAIN: AN ARMY OF CONSULTANTS PRODUCE OVERPRICED DISASTER Government ministers and senior officials at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London will be publicly criticized later this month when the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), in a report on Whitehall management, accuses the MoD of allowing a 72 percent cost overrun -- estimated at œ800 million -- on the building of the Trident submarine base at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, despite ministers and defence secretaries receiving monthly updates concerning on-site problems. The report follows a visit to the base in May related to other financial and engineering fiascos at the base (IN N.264/46). The head of the MoD's defence procurement department, Dr. Malcolm McIntosh, told MPs that 1,000 consultants were engaged in the Trident Works Program. From a list of "top twenty consultancy earners", two firms, British Aerospace and Kennedy & Donkin, were each paid over œ40 million, while four other companies received œ20 million pounds each. This abundance of consultants naturally produced hundreds of possible solutions to the huge building project designed to accommodate the 16,000 ton Vanguard-class Trident nuclear submarine. Dr. McIntosh told the committee that a "one in 10,000-year prospect" of a serious earthquake in that part of Scotland, plus poor design control, meant that 7,200 variations had to be made to the giant 11-story hoist intended to raise the vessels into dry dock. The PAC chairman, Robert Sheldon, will strongly condemn this form of "continuous design planning" as the "most dangerous" result of the MoD issuing building contracts before detailed plans for approved projects are properly finalized. * GREAT BRITAIN - SAS Out of Ulster & Out of "Home". According to specialists, the SAS was withdrawn from Northern Ireland in January 1994 before the peace process officially began. But the units which returned to "home" at Bradbury Lines in Herefordshire are going to have to move again, this time to Royal Air Force Base Hereford near Credenhill which is four times bigger than Bradbury Lines. * SOUTH AFRICA: "GUNS FOR ULSTER" PROBE REQUESTED Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, during a recent visit to South Africa as a guest of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), in mid-June asked President Nelson Mandela to widen the terms of reference of the Cameron Commission. Lawyers representing Sinn Fein could then submit evidence of how the South African State arms manufacturer, Armscor, supplied weapons used by Loyalist gunmen in Northern Ireland to kill "more than 200" persons in sectarian attacks. At present, the judicial commission is restricted to investigating illegal arms sales since February 1990, while the evidence collated by Sinn Fein concerns a 1988 shipment of RPG7 rocket launchers, AK-47 assault rifles, and grenades. Details of the South Africa/Ulster Loyalist connection emerged during the 1991 trial in Belfast of Brian Nelson, a British Military Intelligence agent who infiltrated the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and subsequently became the UDA's "intelligence and operations officer" in the city. Nelson, a member of the Field Research Unit (FRU) for almost a decade, played a direct part in at least five assassinations. He visited South Africa in June 1985 and was shown a warehouse full of weapons -- of Middle East origin -- ready for shipping by Armscor agent, Richard Wright. According to Nelson, the weapons were landed on the County Down coast in January 1988 with the full knowledge of his FRU handlers and the Security Service, MI5, recipients of Nelson's intelligence "take" on UDA operations. * For more info on Intelligence, or to subscribe, write: Olivier Schmidt intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr tel/fax 33 1 40.51.85.19 ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France