AN inquest into the death in Iraq of a helicopter pilot from RAF Benson is today due to hear evidence from the president of the military Board of Inquiry which investigated the accident.

Flt Lt Kristian Gover, 30, of 33 Squadron, died of smoke inhalation at Basra airport after his Puma helicopter crashed while attempting to land on July 19, 2004.

It had been co-pilot Flt Lt Gover and pilot Flt Lt Daniel Brook's first mission in the country after arriving in Iraq just a few days previously.

An inquest into his death at County Hall, Oxford, has heard that the pilot had believed the wind speed to be considerably lower than the 22 knots which was recorded on that day.

Yesterday Sqn Ldr Paul Bearblock, who trains helicopter pilots, spoke about exercises dealing with judging wind speeds purely on visual clues without relying on instrumentation and the potential for crashing.

He said: "My only experience of a similar situation is in a training simulation.

"We do a very similar exercise (in a simulator) of turning the aircraft downwind, training not to look at instrumentation but judging the conditions purely from what you can see.

"As you are going round the corner you will find the aircraft will start to sink. The natural reaction is to pull the lever hard up as much as possible and on all the occasions I have done it, only two or three people didn't crash."

Assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker said he was considering recommending making it mandatory for wind speed to be passed onto pilots by air traffic control and confirmed by the craft prior to landing.

He said: "There is a two-level approach to safety, it's not simply the onus on the crew, there is also the responsibility of others."

The military board of inquiry, which investigated the accident in 2005, concluded that the main cause of the accident was the pilot making an inappropriate downwind landing.