Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[Chugalug2]

In your passion Airborne I think that you are close to the nub of this scandal; vested interests. As usual the biggest vested interest in the UK Military is not the armed forces but those who supply them, those who work for those who supply them and those who hope to work for those who supply them. Add to that the arrogance of Senior Officers who know more about modern operations than those involved in them directly, because they did something vaguely related too long ago than they would care to admit, and you have a potent cocktail. Stir in rather than shake the secret British ingredient and you have our very unique "Bombe Surprise" in sadly every sense. That ingredient is of course the once renowned and envied Civil Service. Sir Humphrey has morphed into a monster, proud of the fact that he can ensure that scandals like this will never be put right, endex, as Atlantic Cowboy tells us. Well, we shall see. This aircraft was unairworthy, and known to be so by the very crew flying it that day. They may not have used the "A" word, very few seemed even to know what it meant or what it didn't mean. They had no illusions though about the Chinook Mk2, and begged for a Mk1 for this task at least. "No, get on with it", was the reply from above. So they did, but at least they took the sensible precaution of replanning the trip for the shortest over-water leg. In that at least they succeeded, for when what they feared happened they were able to make land-fall. Unfortunately it was hilly and cloud covered and whatever the malfunction, and we now know enough about the Mk2 to know that it was probably very basic and very severe, it defeated them. It does not do to dwell too long on those final few minutes in that flight deck, but they would not have stopped fighting until the very end. That a Chain of Command that so betrayed them and their passengers should so resolutely set out to destroy their memory is unconscionable and a comment on itself rather than them. There is a great deal to be put right here. I have enough faith left in the RAF at least to believe that it will make a start sooner, I hope, rather than later. My views on the MOD are clear and well rehearsed to not need repeating for a change!