A FORMER Hercules pilot who claims that defence chiefs ignored his warnings that aircraft lacked vital safety equipment has been branded a self-publicist.

Tory MP James Gray has urged Flight Lieutenant Nigel Gilbert to let it lie.

Flt Lt Gilbert believes the crew of a Lyneham transport plane downed last year in Iraq would probably have survived if firefighting explosive suppressant foam had been fitted.

The entire crew of Hercules XV179 including eight from RAF Lyneham died when the aircraft was brought down by small-arms fire north of Baghdad.

Two of the dead came from Swindon Master Engineer Gary Nicholson, 42, of Stratton, and Flt Sergeant Mark Gibson, 34, of Sparcells.

According to the BBC yesterday, documents show RAF pilots had requested explosive-suppressant foam devices be fitted to Hercules two years before the attack.

An internal RAF document read: "Urgent operational requests for all Hercules aircraft should continue to be actively pursued.

"Specifically, all aircraft should be fitted with fire suppressants in fuel tanks."

Flt Lt Gilbert, who flew with 47 Squadron in Afghanistan in 2002, said his father wrote to the MoD after he voiced his own worries about the lack of equipment.

In a letter in August 2002, Defence Minister Adam Ingram told him: "We are confident that for all military flights into Afghanistan, appropriate aircraft self-protection measures are in place."

Mr Gilbert yesterday said: "I was flying the aeroplane and can tell you we didn't have a suite of protective aids.

"We had this old jammer which people have described as about as useful as a chocolate fireguard."

"I believe the probability is the crew would have survived that attack if the aircraft had had explosive suppressant foam in the fuel tanks."

"That crew was so good they could have put it down on a road or they could have left the landing gear up and landed straight in the desert. It was as flat as a pancake."

But North Wiltshire MP James Gray, yesterday criticised the former pilot.

He said: "He seems to be a self-publicist. He keeps going on about the same story. I think he should just let it lie."

Sarah Chapman, whose Lyneham-based brother Sergeant Bob O'Connor died on board the Hercules, said: "When I heard about some sort of device that might have altered the outcome of the incident, I didn't know what to do. I was devastated.

"It was the first I had heard about it. I tried to ask questions but I was railroaded off. It was like Go away, girl.'"

In December, an RAF board of inquiry said the crash was not survivable but did state that the lack of a fuel tank safety system could have contributed to the crash.

The MoD last week confirmed that explosive suppressant foam will be fitted to those RAF transport aircraft facing the highest risk.

The foam stops fuel tanks from exploding when pierced by bullets. It has been in use in US Hercules aircraft since the Vietnam war.

A MoD spokesman yesterday said: "Flt Lt Gilbert has experience from 2001 but a lot has moved on from then.

"He has said that had they had ESF they could have landed because it is as flat as a pancake but I do not think he has ever flown in Iraq. It is not as flat as a pancake.

"There is no guarantee that ESF would have prevented the crash."