Greetings all, Glad to see the fight goes on - or should I say "sad" as this should have been sorted ages ago.
The post from Brian with the comments from Air Commodore Blakeley is probably one of the better summaries as to what this has all been about. The last two paras of the Air Cdre's missive really sums up the situation; firstly a pair of Senior Officers attempting to “play” God for reasons best known to themselves and then the abject failure of the MoD and the appropriate Senior Politicians to act in the light that, as evidenced in the pages and pages of posts, as well as the findings of the BoI itself, insufficient evidence exists to determine the cause of the accident on that fateful day and that the charge of gross negligence simply cannot be applied.
What both Wratten and Day failed to understand is that, through their small-minded “tough-guy” stance, the chance of learning real lessons from the crash which could go on and save lives in the future has been totally overshadowed by legal wranglings through to the outright conspiracy theories which have been charted by this Thread. I am a firm believer in there being no smoke without fire. With no evidence to hand linking Wratten and/or Day to the following, (I’m sure others may have it) I would put money on a cover-up regarding the introduction into service of the Chinook Mk 2 into service. At least that might explain their collective actions. If not, what are we to make of them both?
“…upholding the integrity of the chain of command…”? If what took place through Wratten and Day epitomises “integrity”, one has to despair of a Military establishment which propagates such men and promotes them to such levels. Sad really – all of this. Even worse, they will not be the last. However, this particular Crusade must continue.