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THE solicitor representing victims of Thomson’s 1999 Gerona air crash has warned that a Spanish investigation into the accident may not reveal required answers.

Hugh James solicitor Mark Harvey described crash survivors’ initial reaction to the report by the Investigating Authority in Spain as "disappointment".

The report was confidentially unveiled to survivors at an Air Accidents Investigation Branch meeting ahead of its official publication next week.

Harvey said: "Initial reaction from people at the meeting seems to be disappointment. Many of the answers people were looking for don’t appear to have been given.

They want to know from Britannia and the Spanish authorities what went wrong and why they were left for so long without assistance after the accident. An explanation as to why the report has taken five years to produce also doesn’t seem to be forthcoming."

The Britannia Airways Boeing 757 crashed in September 1999 while attempting to land at Gerona in storm conditions. It hit the runway nose wheel first, veering off and breaking into three pieces. Passengers waited for more than an hour to be rescued.

An interim report by the UK Air Accident Investigation Report said a warning light in the cockpit, which meant the aircraft was coming in too steeply, was ignored.

At a court hearing last November Thomson – now owned by TUI – was told it must compensate passengers for psychological and physical damage (Travel Weekly December 1 2003). Judge Graham Jones said the company did not have to claim negligence.

As employees, cabin crew need to prove fault on behalf of Thomson to recover injury compensation. Britannia refused to comment until the report is published.

n TUI remained tight-lipped over possible takeover talks after major shareholder German WestLB decided to sell its 31% stake. Under German rules a stakeholder with 30% of a listed company must make a full takeover bid. Spanish hoteliers, including Barcelo, which owns 22% of First Choice, are rumoured to be lining up a bid.

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