Having sat in the Greek court yesterday and listened to 3 experts in their field prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Helios was a safe airline with established procedures and an acclaimed world expert in the field of accident investigation conclusively prove that the PMS switch was in Auto when the aircraft took off via forensic examination of the faceplate of the P5 panel what did the Greeks do???? Tried to rubbish any claims contrary to the Greek report and then try and swing any blame on the NTSB. The 2 investigators from the NTSB who assisted the Greek AASIB have been shown the AIR evidence and immediatly concluded the Greek report was flawed and so informed the Greek AASIB.
I sat there yesterday to see 3 judges (one of whom spent half the case asleep) try and discredit the 3 experts on the stand, the prosecution didn't have an answer and the only person who seemed to register anything was wrong was the prosecution judge who took notice of the animations, evidence and the questions Alan raised to the investigation team at the time of the reports issuance.
This case is drawing to a close but as engineers we now have to be accutely aware the UKCAA are not interested in supporting anyone involved in an incident and this will put accident investigation back many years. Would any engineer now comply with the accident investigation now any information given will be used to incriminate him whether it's right or wrong?? The answer is No!
Sooner or later, this case will be reopened and the information is that the NTSB are looking seriously at the new evidence and the case will be re-examined. My only hope is the authors of this entirely flawed report are totally discredited with the industry and shown to be the incompetant fools they really are.
However, it may not help Alan in the short term but it's something we should all bear in mind next time we renew our EASA/CAA licences and a concern to us all.