This was a terrible, and by all accounts avoidable, tragedy. As Rabid and FF have said, it is a small mercy that the rest of the crew survived. Coroners are becoming increasingly vociferous in their condemnations of the MoD, and each death, combat or accidental, seems to cast new doubt on the ability of the MoD to provide adequate equipment and maintenance for our armed forces.
One peculiar point of English law is that inquests on deceased service personnel are held in the county to which their remains are returned. Most RAF flight carrying remains used to come into Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, a county with a coroner particularly damning in his criticisms of MoD policy. Recent news coverage of remains returning to the UK has reported the flights coming into Lyneham, in the neighbouring county of Wiltshire, where the coroner is less strident in his views. While there may well be a perfectly good operation reason for the change, the MoD has not opted to divulge it, and it has left many observers in the UK wondering if the change has (perhaps unintentionally) taken some heat off the MoD. I truly hope this is not true, but the MoD seems to have shown little urge to answer the criticisms that have been made of it...