Originally Posted by
Easy Street
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.
There is a view in some circles that if the HSE elect to bring a charge in court under the HASAWA, it is extremely unlikely that the charged party would be found not guilty despite the cogency of the evidence. These views are often associated with a story where this has been the case of guilt being found despite strong mitigating evidence. I've heard some of these stories but I must confess I've never researched their accuracy. Ultimately it is MBA's insurers who will have the strongest influence on whether to plead guilty or not and cost/success is an issue.
As regards the product design quality charge, I suspect that it may have been dropped because of a difficulty in determining, after many years in service, how much of the design could truly be assigned to MBA's responsibility. I can think of many instances of designers' preferences for in-service fixes being 'discouraged' by PTs etc. Warnings, procedures, instructions, training etc. being cheaper are often preferred over proper modifications. In the safety world they have a desirability order of priority for fixing safety problems and 'elimination' of the hazard always comes first in the order.
BTW this isn't to say that PTs don't need to have a strong influence on matters. Unfortunately the HASAWA contains separate duties for designers/manufacturers and operators and this wasn't well recognised in MAA regs. Industry did make representations on this to the MAA on several aspects of the regs but from memory (warning: may be faulty these days) the only outcome was some words in Def Stan 00-56 to the effect that compliance with the Def Stan does not necessarily mean that parties' legal duties are satisfied. This lack of clarity was a driver for a certain engine company issuing so-called 'duty of care' letters to try and mitigate their own liability situation. Unfortunately, many believe that such letters can actually make it worse.
EAP