DEFENCE Secretary Geoff Hoon has insisted that pilot error was the only "plausible explanation" for a 1994 Chinook helicopter crash which killed 29 people, including servicemen and members of the security services.

Publishing the Government's detailed response to a House of Lords select committee inquiry into the accident, on the Mull of Kintyre, he said there was no basis for posthumously exonerating pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook.

The Ministry of Defence rejected the select committee's finding that the original RAF Board of Inquiry had been wrong to blame the crash on negligence by the pilots.

The decision was another bitter blow for the families of the men, who have mounted a prolonged campaign to clear their names.

In a Commons statement, Mr Hoon acknowledged it was a "sensitive and emotive case", and said that reviewing the facts had been one of the hardest duties he had had to perform as a minister.

"We have probed the alternative hypotheses rigorously to see if there is any other plausible explanation that fits the facts. And we have agonised over whether there was some way that we could exonerate the pilots posthumously," he said.

"But on the basis of all the evidence, I am unable to do so."

All 29 people on board the helicopter - including the elite of the Northern Ireland security and intelligence community - were killed when the Chinook crashed into the island in thick fog.

Among the dead was Major Christopher Dockerty, 33, whose family home was near Ripon, North Yorkshire.

The intelligence staff officer was a member of the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire and was based in Northern Ireland.