Lord Advocate, petitioner

Civil aviation – Air accident – Combined voice and flight data recorder (CVFDR) – Disclosure. Court of Session: Granting an application in which the Lord Advocate petitioned the court to order the Secretary of State for Transport to make available to him and Police Scotland the combined voice and flight data recorder (CVFDR) which a helicopter which crashed into sea, killing four passengers, was carrying, the court held that the data contained in the CVFDR were strictly necessary for the purposes of the police investigation into the accident, and that the benefits of disclosure outweighed the adverse domestic and international impact that disclosure might have on the current investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport and any future safety investigation.