TROWBRIDGE An e-mail that gave all coalition aircraft the position of a dug-in ambush between Baghdad and a US base to the west of the Iraqi capital should have prevented the shooting down of an RAF Hercules.

However, the e-mail was not opened until the day after the transport aircraft came down with the loss of ten lives on January 30, 2005, an inquest heard yesterday. An intelligence officer, referred to simply as “O” during the hearing at Trowbridge in Wiltshire, said that information about an attack on an American Black Hawk helicopter from the same ambush site was also not passed on to the relevant people until the day after the tragedy. The Hercules transport aircraft was hit by a burst of ground fire as it flew at low altitude towards Balad, close to Baghdad. Nine RAF personnel and an SAS signals specialist who were on board were killed. The inquest has already heard that the fuel tanks on the Hercules were not fitted with an explosive-suppressant foam.

The inquest continues.

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