Chinook avoided crash cloud cover

A Chinook helicopter avoided the area due to cloud cover

An RAF pilot has told an inquiry he changed his route to avoid clouds near where superbike champion Steve Hislop died in a helicopter crash.

Squadron Leader John Rigby said he told his crew to move away from the A7 valley in the Borders as they headed to an exercise south of Hawick in 2003.

He said it allowed the Chinook to avoid cloud which can cause pilots to become disorientated and endanger safety.

The fatal accident inquiry in Edinburgh into Mr Hislop's death continues.

The motorbike star was killed after the helicopter he was flying crashed on farmland near Teviothead on 30 July, 2003.

We could quite clearly see that the valley hill tops were shrouded in cloud John Rigby RAF Squadron Leader

Mr Rigby, 36, told the inquiry the Chinook was on an exercise from RAF Lossiemouth when it arrived in the Teviothead area 10 minutes after the helicopter crash.

"We looked ahead and saw there was further high ground to the south of Teviothead and we realised that it was marginal whether we were going to get through to the hills," he said.

"We could quite clearly see that the valley hill tops were shrouded in cloud.

"There were more options to get over the high ground to the west."

He said he felt it was safer to take another route.

"In all honesty I didn't know whether the A7 valley was passable," he said.

"I didn't want to take that risk."

Witnesses have previously told the FAI that they heard military jets in the area at the time of the crash.

However, accident investigators have said that cloud was the "probable cause" of the incident and that there were no other aircraft low-flying nearby at the time.