Originally Posted by
charliegolf
if you take it all the way back, and the Hunter were not invented, this would not happened*. What I'm saying, is that people seem to want to show that the flying aspect was the tip of a larger sh1tberg; and AH is taking the fall. Or have I got that wrong. I've never done a loop, but I have learned that there's an entry speed and a minimum height needed to complete one. Have I got that wrong too? The pilot had neither (AAIB).
CG
*facetious of course...
I don’t think your first question is facetious at all. I don’t know the proper legal answer, but ‘proximity’ is a common test. It’s why Inquiries are required to determine root causes. A factor is considered a root cause if its removal from the problem-fault sequence would have prevented the undesirable outcome. It would be reasonable (I believe) to reject the invention of the Hunter as a root cause; but the accident aircraft not being airworthy, serviceable, or fit for purpose, and the pilot not being told this, passes any proximity test.
The AAIB report did say he got it wrong, and the pilot admitted that. The question the Coroner was not allowed to ask (by High Court order), was WHY? The pilot could not explain it, and a defence of Cognitive Impairment was advanced, and was successful at his trial. I cannot comment on that, as I’m not medically trained. But without answering that question it could be argued the Coroner went too far with her decision.
There‘s been a lot of criticism here about this defence, but little about the RAF advancing self-inflicted CI as a root cause of a high profile fatal accident a few years before, which tended to divert from more obvious root causes. Such as, the aircraft was not airworthy, serviceable or fit for purpose, and the pilot not being told this.