I have my doubts about a coverup, myself.
However, there is a most interesting coincidence regarding the fate of the Comet.
A certain British novelist wrote a very popular novel in 1948, which had as its storyline the failure of a new British translatlantic airliner in flight due to metal fatigue, which was only pipointed as the cause after several crashes and extensive testing-to-failure at the RAE. The book was made into a very successful motion picture in 1950. All of this pre-dated the first flight of the Comet by at least two years.
The novelist knew whereof he wrote - he had, in his earlier life, worked for Geoffrey de Havilland, been instrumental in the structural design of very large aircraft and gone on to start his own successful aircraft company. He was FRAeS, and was personal friends with Lord Brabazon of Tara, one of the driving forces behind the Comet project.
The writer didn't make this story up out of thin air - he made it up because he knew that metal fatigue was a significant issue in aircraft structures, and would only become more so. While structural design should be based in sound engineering practice, the publication of such a work of popular fiction indicates, to me at least, a suggestion that this was a problem not adequately understood or addressed at the time.
Interesting, what?
llater,
llamas