By IRNA,
London : The families of two British airmen killed when their Nimrod aircraft exploded in Afghanistan have served legal proceedings on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London, it was reported Wednesday.
The parents of Sergeant Benjamin Knight and Flight Lieutenant Steven Swarbrick are suing Defence Secretary John Hutton for negligence, failure to minimise risk and breach of the right to life, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The two airmen were killed along with 12 other British service personnel, when their 40 year old plane exploded into a fireball moments after a mid-air-refuelling near Khandahar airport in September 2006.
“It is about accountability,” said Graham Knight, whose 25 year old son was killed.
“In this case there was an aircraft that was not airworthy, 14 men died and as far as we know not one person has had action taken against them,” he said.
“We want to know who was responsible, who should have made sure it was airworthy and failed in their duty of care,” the 56-year old father said.
An inquest into the deaths earlier this year ruled that the Nimrod airplane had “never been airworthy” and called for the MoD’s “cavalier approach to safety to come to an end”.
The Telegraph said that if the legal action, which includes the first time the MoD being sued under the European Convention on Human Rights, other legal cases are expected to follow.
The two families are claiming that the government failed to protect the men’s human rights because it failed to minimise the risks of a fire on board the aircraft when it crashed.
“The RAF (Royal Air Force) had a civil and moral duty to ensure the aircraft was airworthy. They did not fulfil that duty, a fact that they have publicly admitted on a number of occasions,” said Trish Knight, mother of the sergeant.
“Ben and Steven were tragically killed, not by insurgents, but by the incompetence of the RAF,” the mother said in a statement.
The crash was the biggest single loss of life suffered by Britain’s air force since World War II.