Well having just read the whole thing, it just looks like ‘words’ riddled with buzzwords and acronyms!
Clearly there was wrong doing here and in all my dealings with RAFAT during a 25 year career, I am not the least bit surprised. On a ‘normal’ squadron (if there actually is such a thing) there are always incidents that occur and these are often dealt with within the chain of command. Crucially if serious enough they can always be escalated up to the wider station level to ensure that occurrences are dealt with properly and away from the squadron’s influence. As a SNCO I have had occasion to send a drunken pilot off to bed with a “Sir, I think you had enough and should leave now” which on that particular FJ squadron I could do because the Boss would back us in keeping his squadron in a good place.
The difference here is that RAFAT have always done things ‘their way’ and the pilots considered beyond reproach. The engineering side similarly view themselves as being in some way ‘the best of the best’ and have often been caught out doing things outside of that mandated in operational and maintenance documentation (their recent incidents have brought this to light but to no avail), because they are in some way special or unique. This has tragically led to the loss of two of two members of RAFAT. Add to that they were living in their own little ‘bubble’ at Scampton and you can see how this situation came about.
Any other squadron would have been disbanded long ago for less than this. One hopes that now they are at Waddington they will learn to conform to the ‘norms’ of service life and follow a better path.