B15
<< I'm confused that this new review is going to change anything - I think it gives false hope to the crusaders!>>
No disrespect to the efforts of all in this campaign, but to me it is like having a verdict against two victims falsely accused of their own manslaughter having that verdict’s status reduced to the equivalent of “not proven” while making no effort to establish who was really culpable lest this distracts from that outcome.
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Regarding the other points you made, while others are correct to point out that much has been gone over before, there are still (after all this time) inputs relevant to this case – in particular, that most basic starting point, the weather.
It’s not surprising that you thought that they were in IMC at the critical time – this view has been pushed from the very beginning.
First please refer to my recent postings for a fuller description of what I believe it to have been like and why - Wx is one parameter that I am very confident about.
The very new stuff to me is that I now know that the best/obvious witnesses to the wx were not called to the BOI (or any subsequent inquiry for that matter) – it seems that the decision to paint a picture of aircrew error in bad wx had been decided upon before the hearing – I believe a deliberate misrepresentation.
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Again referring to my previous descriptions of the Wx - they were under the thick cloud – they ran into IMC about 50 ft from the granite – they apparently just had time to react with an evasive manouevre (sort of diminishes the argument for controls jams,etc).
They had made a deliberate turn to the right and started to slow down (Boeing’s analysis) – they were somehow misled as to their range to go – that the handling pilot had his course selector on the track they followed (from turn to impact) suggests they had something to get range & bearing from.
If you refer to the track diagram I posted recently, it looks like they had planned to approach that landing area (by waypoint A) on 035mag (gets you the soonest clear line as you clear the high part of the shore) – if you imagine the thing they may have been referring to being not at that area but ½ mile or so up the hill, then the track to the impact makes sense – as does their misjudgement of the range to go.
I don’t know where the portable TACAN idea came from (apart from me some years ago as a possibility) but if you mean AN/TRN-26 or equivalent, would this needed to have been accessed via the TACAN CU? – if so, it was set for the MAC TACAN which was still operational that day and so I have discounted this piece of equipment from the equation.
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<< Or did they put total trust in a portable TACAN placed in a dangerous location which is probably ok in good conditions?>>
I think you’ll find, if you ask operational pilots, that portable TACANS and, more recently, PRC112s (ubiquitous these days) do get placed in “dangerous” locations to allow insertion, extraction, resupply, etc and even sometimes are used to mark isolated hazards in temporary FAFs – although their use in such circumstances would be with a prior understanding of the location and, in the case of PRC112s, would be accompanied by voice guidance from the person on the ground (UHF guard – as was found to have been selected by the handling pilot of ZD576 that day?).
The relevance here is that Flt Lt Tapper had landed at that area on previous occasions and would have been familiar with it – without being somehow misled, they would have been able to land there in those conditions – other attending helos did that evening – if they had had a pinpoint reference on the landing area, they could have come in smartly, the downwash from the Chinook dispersing the ground mist as they settled – would have been quite an impressive sight – an impressive demonstration of one of the HC2’s capabilities, perhaps?
I really do wish the Mull group success in clearing the pilots' names - worthy in its own right - but I believe that there is more that can be done to pressure the MOD as to what really happened as, had there been another task that was open to accidental or wilful disruption, anyone else that could have been responsible needs to be held accountable for full justice to be done. I hope that a successful outcome to the Group's efforts will not close this case forever.