I’m astonished at M-B’s guilty plea. Even assuming the company couldn’t prove that it had informed MoD of the risk of over-tightening in 1990 (along with all the other users), its lawyers must surely have been aware of the 2002 QinetiQ report? The latter date rings true to me for another reason: undergoing a course on a Mk10-equipped aircraft around that time, I distinctly remember the ground school instructor advising us to give the drogue shackle link a ‘wiggle’ to check it wasn’t pinched. Unless this had always been part of Mk10 groundschool patter (can’t remember that far back!) then intra-MoD awareness of the 2002 report would explain why the potential fault was highlighted.