Originally Posted by
falcon900
Tecumseh,
I am sorry to be droning on about this particular point, but this is where it seems to me that this saga turns from being yet another biblically scandalous procurement debacle into something else. Ok, they screwed up procuring Mk2, so what? I have bought but not yet read Citadels of waste, but am all too familiar with the plot; so much so that I am deferring reading it all until I am in a suitable mental state!
I have no sense that any of the dramatis personae in relation to the crash had any personal culpability in relation to the procurement.
And yet Bagnall felt inclined to sign the RTS, attempting to cover his bases as he did so, and two even more senior officers chose to protect him when the proverbial hit the fan in the most dramatic fashion. Odd.
It would be too cynical to speculate about whether any of them went on to post service employment with any of the contractors involved, so I won’t.
Falcon, I'll leave the book to speak for itself, although when discussing Chinook it concentrates on Mk3. What prompted it was a recent Defence Committee report that, much like any mention of 'procurement cock-ups' on pprune, conflated procurement and requirements setting. (Two ongoing threads are full of it). It complained of procurement failures, and its case studies were requirements failures.
To have personal culpability one must assess proximity to events. No, none of the VSOs were in the project office or Operational Requirements. But one of the officers who reviewed the findings and allegedly agreed with them was Controller Aircraft, Air Marshal Roger Austin. (Source - CAS, ACM Graydon). When discussing Controller Aircraft, MoD always talks of Sir Donald Spiers. He left in April 1994.
Others are Wratten and Day of course, but also Richard Johns and Peter Squire. Michael Graydon (CAS) wrote that they were 'off course by some miles'. Why would he say that to a Marshal of the RAF? Michael Alcock was Chief Engineer from 91-96, in the period airworthiness management was being run down. He became double-hatted as Air Member Logistics in April 1994. One of two recipients of CHART, he knew the Mk2 wasn't airworthy. What did he do about it? Oversaw another ~28% cut in funding, a renewed directive not to undertake safety tasks, and staff threatened with dismissal if they complained or met legal obligations.
You must take these names and then read the Nimrod Review. Ask why Haddon-Cave named and praised (e.g.) Alcock, while crucifying General Sam Cowan for 4% per annum cuts over 5 years, as a result of a political directive. Five x 4% cuts, vs 3 x 28%, the latter directly targeting safety management. And why did he claim the savings at the expense of safety policy of 1987 was issued in 1998? Who benefitted? The same officers.
Yes, as you say, a lot to conceal. Those named, with the exception of Austin (who has never spoken), were drawn out of their hole by CHART in early 2011. They wrote to the media, but their letters were systematically refuted using known facts.