Chinook
Brian Dixon,
Thanks for the welcome, though I have little new to add to earlier posts. Just once more: at waypoint change, we all agree, the aircraft was under control. So why did the crew not turn away, which would have been the action of reasonable men? (the definition of negligence being that action was taken or not taken, which reasonable men would, or not, have taken)?
One or two posts have suggested that the crew could not turn away, ie there was a control failure. In that case you have to accept that at or about waypoint change, a failure occured virtually simultaneously in two discrete control systems (as I understand them), and then just a few seconds before impact the restrictions both freed themselves more or less simultaneusly, leaving absolutely no witness marks or other evidence of such failures. If you wish to believe that, then there is really no more to be said, at least not by me!
As to your question about height, speed and headings, I cannot believe that the precise figures (I repeat, precise figures) matter all that much. If the aircraft was not at low level and high speed heading for the Mull, then where was it and whar was it doing?
At a higher level of discussion, I think Chipp63 is quite right: there is an inconsistency in saying on the one hand that the crew'deserve the benefitof the doubt' but on the other hand saying that it must be proved beyond any doubt whatever that the crew were negligent.
Meanwhile, do read the book 'Chinook Crash', and do not, as one or two posts have already hinted, dismiss it because you might not agree with what it says when you get around to reading it. The author makes the interesting point, among others, that the crew mistook the fog signal building and the offshore rocks nearby at Rubha na Lice, for the lighthouse and the nearby offshore rocks at that point. I await views on that.
With all good wishes, as always. JP
Last edited by John Purdey; 14th Sep 2004 at 15:42.