Worker,
I am sorry that my frustration allowed my choice of words to come across as cynicism. I still think that your attempt to discredit the whole Blakeley report on this basis is highly questionable. You actually said that the AOCinC said “nothing of the sort” when he clearly did say it.
Although it maybe that Blakeley took this out of context, this debate is full of this, it does surely not change the facts he quotes, especially that the BoI did not review the previous aircraft reliability issues. Either they did or they didn’t. I do not see it in the report.
Certainly one of the problems was still potentially there. Having been involved in managing the design and marketing of electronic equipment for the last eighteen years, I am completely astounded that anyone thought it was acceptable to carry passengers in an aircraft in which the DECU plug had to be checked every 15 minutes to ensure connection. My experience tells me that this will usually only work as a temporary measure and will eventually fail to work as intermittent contacts tend to degrade quite rapidly when not designed for it. I understand that failure of this item would, at least, cause a major distraction. Perhaps I should add that I have some experience of the lack of understanding within the MoD of the performance of electrical contacts.
My limited relevant flying experience as a PPL does not allow me to make many valued judgements about the various theories expounded in this case and to attempt to answer your “exam” questions. However, my forty years experience being trained and working as a scientist does help me to evaluate the responses to the facts and opinions which have been expressed by many in this long and sad affair.
Working as a scientist in industry I have sometimes published reports or technical papers which have drawn conclusions. For these, the standard of certainty required is “absolutely no doubt whatsoever” as judged by one’s impartial peers before publication. In this type of work there is no room for speculation. (dic. theorising, guessing, engaging in risky commercial transactions).
Sometimes scientists are pressurised to make or support decisions for which there is insufficient factual data to make these decisions with this high degree of certainty. In the real world these decisions have to be made and, although I hate doing it, I recognise that there are often compelling commercial reasons for this kind of speculation. In this respect I am regularly involved in many discussions/arguments about the right decision and these often depend on the ambitions of the various parties involved. In the Chinook case I cannot see any compelling reason for making the decision to condemn the pilots based on speculation except as an attempt to hide the manifest incompetence which led to an unsafe aircraft being used for a passenger flight. Perhaps this is naive of me.
As you say, this case has been reviewed by professional airmen, politicians, lawyers and even Churchmen. Maybe it is time that it was reviewed by scientists who are best able to distinguish between fact and speculation. In my view, the degree of scientific proof required, best described in the words of the RAF regulation as “absolutely no doubt whatsoever”, would leave the questions unanswered and the charge of gross negligence removed.
I personally have little idea whether they were negligent or not but it makes me frustrated when I see those who cannot defend themselves being systematically condemned on the basis of speculation, no matter how well informed it is.
p1