THE fathers of two pilots accused over the Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash, in which a Bolton soldier died, are renewing attempts to clear their sons' names.

An influential committee of MPs today said the verdict of pilot error in the 1994 crash was "unsustainable".

And in an unusually strongly-worded report, the committee accused the Ministry of Defence of "unwarrantable arrogance" in preferring the findings of its own inquiry board to those of a Scottish court of law.

Bolton father-of-three Major Anthony Robert Hornby was among 29 people killed when an RAF Chinook crashed into the fog-shrouded Mull of Kintyre in June 1994.

Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook also died in the 1994 crash alongside 25 Northern Ireland intelligence experts as the Chinook ZD-576 made its way to a security conference in Scotland.

It was the RAF's worst peacetime accident and has been labelled a government "cover up" by campaigners. The Commons Public Accounts committee said it was "impossible" to prove the finding of an RAF board that the pilots' "gross negligence" had caused the crash. Major Hornby's father, Alan, has backed the campaigners' bid to clear the pilots of gross negligence.

His son was 38, from the Queens Lancashire Regiment when the helicopter went down in thick mist.

Mr Hornby said: "I support what is being done by the pilots' fathers and I agree with the findings of the parliamentary sub committee."

Mr Cook's father, Captain John Cook, was today meeting the Mull of Kintyre Group in the House of Commons. Mr Hornby was not among the delegation in London today.

The group want the verdict to be dismissed.

Captain Cook said of the committee's findings: "We've been saying this for 6 years. We're absolutely delighted that this important body of people has taken all this trouble to come to this conclusion. I'm hopefully optimistic that the Government may take notice of it.

"This is a vindication for us and all those wonderful people who have supported us when they had nothing to gain by doing so."

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, however, immediately indicated he would be standing by the "gross negligence" finding, saying the committee had failed to produce any new evidence.