Air Safety Management (or lack of!), pages 132 et sec, is worryingly familiar. Once again we find that most basic requirement of Flight Safety, a reliable and fully functioning reporting system, is conspicuous by its absence. SORs (or whatever we might call them these days) are essential for identifying possible problems so that they can thus be nipped in the bud before they become accidents. We have heard before on this forum how they were one of the first casualties of Haddon Cave's "Savings at the Cost of Safety" following the subversion of UK Military Air Safety by RAF VSOs. It seems that the RAF, the MAA, and the MOD have so far failed to rectify that damage. The result is the presence here of ever more UK Military Avoidable Air Accident threads. Mercifully this one merely cost treasure rather than life.
Regulation must be independent of the operator. Investigation must be independent of both operator and regulator. Until that happens the MAA will be committed to the falsehood in the Nimrod Report that Air Safety was compromised in the 90s rather than the 80s, and thus RAF VSOs were uninvolved. Until that bullet is bitten we must expect more avoidable accidents and more needless loss of life.