Originally Posted by
langleybaston
I would very much like to think it could not happen in the modern RAF. Tell me it couldn't please.
There are cockups and cockups,, but this cockup was monumental, thoroughly gash all round.
Can I say Third World at its worst but without the corruption?
Breathtaking story, you couldn't make it up.
"Could not happen" is always going to be too ambitious a statement where people are involved. People are forever finding new and often convoluted ways to screw up despite the very best efforts of other people to design systems that stop them screwing up. So yes, it could happen in the modern RAF. Is it likely? I don't know. I'd say the Tutor midair (arthritic pilot allowed to fly aerobatic aircraft despite being unable to look out properly), Cunningham ejection (ill-advised seat maintenance regime, inappropriate time pressures leading to incorrect harness routing and moving seat pins at high speed during landing roll), Voyager negative-g incident (unsecured loose article), Catterick Puma crash (gross indiscipline), GR4 Moray Firth midair (not the direct cause, but still of concern: staff WSO afraid of medium level flight), Reds engineer killed at Valley (inadequate crew training or inappropriate designation of supernumerary crew, take your pick) - and those are just off the top of my head - all indicate that RAF people have shown themselves more than capable of making disastrous mistakes and misjudgements in recent memory.
[Coincidental or not, rather a lot of those killed or injured in that list were people to whom the RAF owed a special duty of care: air cadets, students and passengers.]