ANDREW CARTER took one look at the doomed RAF Puma on the morning of its final flight and said: “That’s going down.”

Mr Carter, who runs the Swale View Caravan Park, near Richmond, made four phone calls – first to North Yorkshire Police, then to the RAF and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) – warning that tragedy was inevitable if the helicopter wasn’t grounded.

But he says he was “brushed off” at every turn, with tragic consequences.

“We get helicopters flying overhead all the time, but this was different,” he said.

“I just knew something wasn’t right. It was flying too low – tree-hopping.

“The doors were open and you could see men hanging out of the side, it was really dangerous.

“I made the first call to police at about 9.30am, but I could tell I wasn’t being taken seriously.”

Less than 12 hours later, the Puma had crashed.

Mr Carter, who regularly flew as a passenger on helicopters during his 14-year career in the oil industry, developed a sense for when there was something wrong on board an aircraft.

“We used to fly in Scotland and Russia, and on one occasion I just got this gut feeling I should not get back in the helicopter for a return flight to the base. The next day I heard it had crashed, killing the crew.”

Mr Carter made three more calls throughout the day to RAF authorities in Dishforth and Leeming, as well as to the CAA.

“Apart from one lady, who said she needed to refer the matter to a higher authority, I was just not taken seriously,”

he said. “The CAA told me I would receive a written response in a fortnight – that says it all.

“If that had been me on the other end of that phone, I would have been straight on to the relevant people, telling them to make contact with the pilot and bring him in for a chat. That’s all it would have taken.”

Barrister Oliver Sanders, who represented the MoD during the inquest, apologised to Mr Carter on its behalf.

“In reporting your concerns you did absolutely the right thing,” he said.

A spokeswoman for North Yorkshire Police said: “We don’t have the capacity to deal with air traffic, although it would be expected that we would pass on the phone number of the relevant agency who would need to deal with it.

“The only issue to come out of the call to us was that we could have been more helpful by passing on the MoD’s number.”

A spokesman for the CAA said the matter would be investigated.

Mr Carter, 54, said: “I’m not angry – the whole thing just makes me very sad.

“If someone had listened to me that day, perhaps this tragic loss of life could have been avoided.”