LyndaV, thank you for your encouragement. As I said above, it is the support of the families that is the essential ingredient if we are ever going to get UK Military Airworthiness Provision and Air Accident Investigation reformed. To be honest with you the similarities between the Valiant and Chinook BoIs was as much a revelation to me as they were to you, but they merely reflect the pattern of many UK Military Fatal Air Accidents reviewed in this Forum. Poor investigation, interference from above, suppression of vital evidence, and downright lying from the highest levels, characterises most of them in full or in part. It is axiomatic in Aviation that the Operator, the Regulator, and the Investigator be independent and separate of each other. What happened with XD864 from initial Release to Service to the smouldering wreckage at Spanhoe and the subsequent BoI report is a classic example of what happens when they are but one and the same.
Self Regulation Doesn't Work and in Aviation it Kills