Copter crash claimed life of rally ace
RALLYING great Colin McRae was killed in a helicopter crash in September 2007 which also claimed the lives of his five-year-old son and two family friends.
The former world rallying champion, 39, was piloting his Eurocopter AS350 when it went down near Lanark, close to McRae’s family home.
His son Johnny, Graeme Duncan, 37, and Johnny’s friend Ben Porcelli, six, were killed alongside him.
A fatal accident inquiry concluded in 2011 that McRae was at fault for carrying out unnecessary low-level manoeuvres.
The group had been flying back from a trip to see a friend when the helicopter crashed.
The inquiry heard from Ben’s parents who said they had not given McRae permission to take their son in the aircraft.
Lanark sheriff Nikola Stewart concluded: “The deaths and the accident resulting in the deaths might have been avoided had Mr McRae not flown his helicopter into the Mouse Valley.
“Such a precaution would have been entirely reasonable.
“There was no necessity to enter the Mouse Valley. There were no operational or logistical reasons to enter the Mouse Valley.
“For a private pilot such as Mr McRae, lacking the necessary training, experience or requirement to do so, embarking upon such demanding, low-level flying in such difficult terrain, was imprudent, unreasonable and contrary to the principles of good airmanship.”
McRae, the son of fivetime British rally champion Jimmy McRae, still holds the record for the youngest person to win the world rally championship, which he took in 1995.
In November 2008, he was posthumously inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
It was revealed that at the time of his death, he had been in talks about returning to Subaru, with whom he had enjoyed his early success, to compete in the world rally championships in 2008.