Tuc, Others,
I might be able to shed some light on the MoD's inability to locate documents. I apologise in advance if this post has a flavour of 'the good old days' about it - it's not aimed at criticising the people now trying to do their best in the MoD. I also apologise for boring some of you.
A long time ago in a universe far away, the business of MoD departments (and commands) was conducted on paper using things called files, or in Navy parlance, 'packs'. If a letter (or signal, or other communication) came in, the registry would put it in the appropriate pack for you. They did this using a 'pack index', which everybody in the department used. They then sent you the pack, with the letter (or signal) highlighted as a numbered 'New Paper'. Here's a really important thing. The packs had a series of numbered 'minute sheets' in the front, in which you recorded EVERYTHING you did with that pack. If you just commented on a letter, you minuted it. If you wrote a Loose Minute, that was minuted. If you wrote a letter, you minuted it. If you made a decision, you minuted it. If you wanted the issue cross referenced to another pack, you minuted it. Registry minuted every addition to and withdrawal from the pack. Every minute was numbered and dated.
A final really important thing. If any pack dealt directly with airworthiness evidence or decisions, it was labelled as 'Airworthiness File' or 'Airworthiness Critical'. This applied extra controls on the packs, including secure stowages, more frequent reviews, more senior signatory levels, etc. The whole point of all this was to ensure that the decisions and instructions issued by the staffs were recorded in an auditable trail. It also also ensured that they could be found when required. It also made sure that papers weren't inadvertently destroyed.
Sounds cumbersome, doesn't it? You'd expect this system to be slow and unable to react quickly. You'd also expect that it would involve hundreds of admin types shuffling paper. Dead wrong. A properly run Registry could get packs to you in minutes if required, on top of the daily 'drops' they carried out. Or you could go down there and sign the pack out. Emails were easy to control, if you just used the same numbering system for your computer files as the 'pack index' used.
Why have I bored you with this stuff? Because the MoD lost almost all of its control over airworthiness data as it entered the 'paperless' age. In my direct experience, few departments imposed a central numbering system over the new digital file folders being created by the thousand at hundreds of terminals. Again in my direct experience, one PT had no less than FOUR separate file folders, each purporting to be 'the' list of applicable Service Modifications. Simply put, the PTs no longer had an accurate record of where much of their airworthiness and technical data was. The Registries had been replaced with (larger) Business Management Teams and the task of file upkeep was transferred to the technical desk officers. Some did it diligently. Sadly, many didn't. Again, direct experience - I was asked to take over a complex avionics upgrade project - on calling for the files I was handed twelve inches of loose papers, which I was told represented the record of one year's work.
Paper files were now used to do no more than hold a copy of emails and letters - if the desk officers could be a***d to print the copies. Often, they couldn't. Minute sheets had fallen out of use, so reconstructing the history of a technical issue was now almost impossible. If you thought it couldn't get any worse, think again. In around 2009 new instructions were issued that henceforth, no 'weeding' or cross referencing of files was allowed, nor were papers to be moved from one file to another. The instruction explicitly said that the aim was to 'reduce time wasted in managing obsolete paper files'. Hundreds of files went off to 'archive', meaning that it was now impossible to find out what data was there.
I'm sorry, once again, for boring you with this, but it's germane to one of the most astonishing feature of this tragic accident. (to me, anyway). I continue to be amazed that anyone would have approved the issue of a Technical Instruction that called for the ejection seat drogue shackle to be dismantled every 50 flying hours, and then for this work to be carried out at first line. So, when I first read the SI report, I looked forward to an explanation. What I found astonished me. There was NO audit trail recording how the RTI came to be applied to the seat. NO entries in the 'Cassandra' hazard log. NO record of key decisions. NO explanation of why 22 Group decided to press for the adoption of an RTI that clearly posed a serious safety risk. NO record of who signed off the RTI without having checked it against the appropriate Safety Case. It's my considered view that had RTI/59D been properly staffed, recorded in the Hazard Log, reviewed by the right bunch of people (that would have been a Local Technical Committee, until they were disbanded), this accident might well have been avoided. Someone, somewhere would have stuck up their hand and asked whether RAFAT first line personnel were the right people to start taking ejection seats apart every 50 hours.
The SI report concludes with a series of recommendations, many of which say that PTs should 'ensure that they have a robust and audible method of tracking, reviewing and managing airworthiness decisons'. Tuc would say (correctly) that this is no more than 'comply with mandated instructions'. I'd have gone with a more direct approach, involving a number of Anglo-Saxon words.
If you fly a UK military aircraft right now you need to be concerned. If you're working in a PT and you can't lay your hands on airworthiness related data, you need to be worried. If you aren't recording what you are doing, and making sure that those records are being kept, you need to be REALLY worried. If you work in a PT and don't know what 'airworthiness related data' is, or where it's kept, you need to think about a career change.
Best Regards as ever to all those doing their best under difficult circumstances,
Engines