CAMPAIGNERS have met with Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to urge him to reopen the inquiry into a helicopter crash in which a high-ranking Bolton soldier died.

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

The two pilots and 26 MI5, army and RUC intelligence officers from Northern Ireland also died.

A delegation from the Mull of Kintyre Group met with Mr Hoon at the Ministry of Defence in London yesterday .

Major Hornby's father, Alan, backed the campaign and said he felt the Ministry of Defence had not done enough to discover the cause of the crash.

The group -- which did not include Mr Hornby -- is hoping to clear the names of Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook, who were taking the 27 intelligence experts from Belfast to a conference in Scotland.

The original RAF Board of Inquiry said the dead pilots had been guilty of gross negligence.

Mr Hornby said: "The pilots have had no action taken against them but I don't think they were to blame.

"I believe there was something wrong with the helicopter and there is evidence which suggests this to be true."

An investigation into the crash by Channel Four News and Computer Weekly magazine earlier this year pointed to a five-year cover-up of the incident.