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RAF Air Controller ClearedTue, February 25, 2003Source: Ananova NewsAn RAF air traffic controller has been cleared of the deaths of two US fighter pilots whose planes crashed into a mountain during a snowstormAn RAF air traffic controller has been cleared of the deaths of two US fighter pilots whose planes crashed into a mountain during a snowstorm. The jury of six senior RAF officers has also acquitted Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Williams, 47, of RAF Leuchars, Fife, of an alternative charge of professional negligence at a court martial. The case against him lasted 22 days and was the longest and most expensive in RAF history. Flt Lt Williams is believed to have been the first UK military controller in living memory to be court-martialled in connection with a fatal air crash. He was charged with causing the deaths of Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Hyvonen, 40, and Captain Kirk Jones, 27. It was alleged Williams told the Americans to fly below 6,500ft when they requested the "minimum vectoring altitude" - a US term unfamiliar to the RAF at the time. The two pilots died when their F15s crashed into Ben Macdui in the Cairngorms on March 26 2001. Williams had denied the charge. The US pilots were on a low-flying exercise from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk when they disappeared. Mountain rescue teams found the wreckage near the summit of the Highland mountain, the second highest in the UK. The bodies of Lt Col Hyvonen and Capt Jones were recovered within days. |
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