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Old 17th Jan 2019, 09:18
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KelvinD
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Hampshire
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I too was involved in this incident at one remove. Back then, I was working for IAL and seconded to Lockheed for their Civil Aviation programme. Initially hired for ground radio, I soon became involved in Nav Aids and wound up at one stage as supervisor for Nav Aids & Comms for all the Western sector of Saudi Arabia. When the accident occurred, my mate in the next office to mine was dispatched to Riyadh as an ICAO rep and another mate was sent up there to do the photography. The photographs were always the property of the Saudi authorities but I was able to view quite a few of them and they were horrific. I was tasked with transcribing all the ATC tapes to cassette format for transmission to Washington and I can tell you that the official report does indeed have some deficiencies. I won't go into detail here but chief among those deficiencies are parts of the Captain's communications, particularly with the fire service. My ICAO mate returned with some more tales and between his reports and the tape recordings, there is no doubt the huge loss of life was down to a combination of the Captain's standard Saudi attitude (such as I am the Captain, we will do what I decide) and the F.E.'s dyslexia. I was surprised to see it referred to in the report but it meant he was unable to find his way around the relevant manuals at the time. One of the people referred to in the report is the director of the programme we were involved in (update/renewal of ATC system, building of the new airports at Jeddah & Riyadh etc), Mohammed Dabaagh. He was effectively my boss's boss and a real character who really enjoyed his Johnny Walker Red! He was obviously not too happy with the way the investigation was being handled and, by an amazing coincidence, he soon found himself removed from the programme and about the same time, Lockheed lost the contract, with Bedix F.E. taking over.
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