Re: Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)
Turnbull,
Yes it may be a spurious indication but until you have made other checks it could also be real - it would be just as dangerous to assume it to be spurious when it was not. I do not know what sensors triggered this warning at that time on the Chinook Mk2 or even whether it was a FADEC software glitch. I do know, from the BoI evidence, that the engines also suffered uncommanded run-downs and run-ups (with what warnings I do not know, but I imagine the symptoms were pretty obvious) and that as well as being incomplete the FRCs were misleading - something that might turn a minor spurious indication problem into a major distraction - definitely not the material of a Gross Negligence verdict. If I can again quote the Stn Cdr Odiham's remarks in his review of the BoI:
Whilst tackling this issue the Board were unable to totally discount the following factors:
a. Spatial disorientation or visual illusion.
b. An unregistered technical malfunction.
c. Human factors.
Any of these, or a combination of them, could, in my view, have sufficiently distracted the crew from the task of turning away from the Mull to cause them both to inadvertently enter cloud and then to fail to take the correct procedure for an emergency climb in a timely manner. The Board consider engine control system malfunctions and it is particularly relevant to note that at this stage of the Chinook Mk 2's service spurious ENG FAIL captions, lasting on average 7-8 seconds, were an increasingly frequent occurrence. These are now well understood but at the time they were not. Had such an indication occurred it would have caused crew considerable concern particularly as they were over the water with no obvious area for an emergency landing. Such a warning would also have required an urgent and very careful check of engine instruments and FRCs.
When I wrote my engineering paper more than 2 years ago I commented that one of my concerns was that the aircrew had become so used to the Mk2's problems, both spurious and real, that they treated them as routine, and hence real emergencies could be slower to be picked up and problems even go unreported. Your comment that: "the majority who understood the problem were happy to fly the aircraft" is not borne out by the Stn Cdr's views of the time. I suggest that aircrew who were "happy" to fly the aircraft in this state, as opposed to those who might have been resigned to doing their duty (as Flt Lt Tapper was) contributed little to flight safety! Even more importantly, as picked up by Arkroyal and pulse 1, Tapper was only too well aware of the issues and was not happy with the Mk2, nor did the Chinook at that time, and this aircraft in particular, in terms of airworthiness meet even the minumum standards that would be applied to a similar non-operational civil flight!
In all of this there are only two indisputable facts:
The aircraft crashed into the Mull
Nobody knows why - and this includes MOD and even the Senior Reviewing Officers who found the pilots Grossly Negligent - something the Senior Reviewing Officer admits is the case.
MOD and the Reviewing Officers rely on conjecture and hypotheses to justify their verdict, but do not acknowledge the issues relating to the airworthiness of the aircraft and its fitness for purpose at all - yet these must have been well known to all involved. If there had been fuller TORs or even a cursory examination of all of the issues raised by the BoI the Reviewing Officers could not have come to a conclusion of pilot error let alone one breaking the rules of AP3207 of Gross Negligence. That it would not suit MOD to open Pandora's Box covering the introduction to service of the Mk2 is now clear - and if you want the next example just look at the Mk3. MOD may continue to ignore the facts, but I imagine there are many people in the system who like us know only too well that this verdict is an unsupportable gross miscarriage of justice which we will continue to fight against.