The review was announced to widespread welcome by Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, shortly after he took office in the coalition government formed after the general election of May this year.

However, it is now being rumoured that this review will be held in private in the fierce internal rearguard action fighting against Fox’s decision, could be that the MoD would only ‘agree’ to an independent review if it were to be conducted in private.

The Chinook Mk2 crash on Mull and the pilot blame, was an issue that Computer Weekly's editor Karl Schneider fought hard over in 1999.

Aviation experts and many in the RAF have consistently maintained that this was caused by a fuel control software error, branding it as dangerous and saying that the Chinook Mk2 was not airworthy when it came into service in the months before the crash on the Mull, highlighting substantial software modification post crash and a changed processor design flaw. The issue after a decade deserves honest, open scrutiny.

The Chinook Mk II had been fitted by Boeing with a new digital engine control system, initially supposed to have an analogue or manual back up, in case of software malfunction.

Computer Weekly was a diligent and successful investigator into the performance and monitoring of the software concerned, has shown, with no resistance from the MoD, that Boeing went ahead and installed a digital back up, leaving pilots of the aircraft with no manual override in the case of malfunction.

The Full Authority Digital Engine Control FADEC software describes the situation licenced by default by the MoD, where the pilots of the Kintyre Chinook had no means of intervening if the software controlling the engine of their aircraft ran amok.

This – and supporting evidence on FADEC’s performance – formed the series of documents placed in a pile of miscellaneous papers that were unlikely to be  used in the process of the inquiry. And by the MoD’s own account were not used.

The technical availability of these documents to that inquiry, however, has been the mainstay of the MoD’s insistence to campaigners fighting to clear the names of Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook that there was no new evidence to be considered.

The independent review is welcome. Perhaps the MoD would be wise not to veto a public hearing on the issue of safety critical software that  increasingly permeates and impacts into everyday life.