76Fan - whoa there just a minute....
I AM small ships quailified and was the squadron QFI (RN) in my time for ship ops.
Two observations, if I may:
1. 1971 had a totally different perspective on flight safety- like there wasn't any!
2. It is always someone's fault when humans are involved and in this particular instance (or one remarkably like it), the situation arose where the rating(s) who were retrieving said lashings were not adequately trained. Two ratings went in under the disc that night - one for the front lashings and one for the tail lashings.
One of them couldn't undo the 2nd lashing fast enough - and so he removed only ONE lashing and returned to stand alongside the FDO and held up both ends of only one lashing which when counted by the pilot made the aircrew think there were four lashings removed.
The a/c launched and luckily the attached lashing snapped.
The rating was put on a disciplinary and removed from the ship. His defence being he was under extreme pressure to get in and out from under the disc and didn't think it mattered if one lashing (only) remained because he thought the a/c would be able to break free anyway. Badly trained deck crew and poor supervision by the FDO was the primary cause followed by additional contributory factors from the aircrew perspective.
PS: One doesn't need to be small deck qualified to be an SME on deck ops by the way, so go easy on Crab.