Originally Posted by
Chugalug2
Good post, tuc. The pigeons are now coming home to roost. We may expect more harrumphing from the apologists in the meantime. The cover up appears to consist more and more of filigree lace these days.
Wow, I’ve become an apologist now.
This series of seats had numerous design issues. Some of these were communicated to some customers, but others were not.
I give no slack to the MoD when justified, MB deserve the same. Airworthiness directives and notifications are not something that can be lost due to MoD reorganisation. They are formally issued and tracked by the company with regulator oversight. The reason MB didn’t produce a copy was down to the fact it never existed then or any subsequent year. Worryingly, when evidence of damage was noted by MB during numerous post-accident ejection seat inspections they still didn’t warn the customers or issue an airworthiness note or directive. One must now question the use of MB to support accident investigations as they are neither honest or independent.
Feel free to throw as many stones at the MoD as you like as they have presented many rich targets. But in this case the Inquest, Coroner and prosecutors didn’t find a neatly bound and airworthy design, supported by carefully honed documents communicated to all with a robust feedback loop with a single guilty-looking end user ignoring all concerns and design changes. They found a company with a cavalier attitude with flawed internal safety management and a seat design the coroner called ‘utterly useless’. That company has now admitted its guilt at the eleventh hour, so why should we consider them innocent?