All RAF pilots of my era were taught low level weather aborts during their basic Jet Provost low level navigation training. Quite why this experienced pilot was so unaware of the immediate terrain and yet pressed on with his exercise will probably never be fully established.
Beags....has an RAF crew smacked rock since you were first trained on Boxkites in the RAF? Seems to me we have had a long ongoing discussion about at least one crew in a Chinook.
Try to answer your own question....why did the two pilots find themselves flying lower than the rock? Reckon they may have had some help in making that mistake? It does not have to be intentional help....it does not have to be direct help....but two good men died for some bad reason.
It seems very odd to hold a court martial while a BOI is on-going. They are two indepenent inquiries and have completely different purposes, however they are about the very same set of facts and thus cannot be separated.
My view would be the court martial was hurried up and the BOI was suspended so that political face could be saved. No one on the RAF side wanted to confronted with any responsibliity for two USAF aircraft and pilots being lost.....no matter how tangentially involved.
I see it as being a very transparant method of shielding the home team while leaving the visitors out on the limb.
That the USAF pilots made a mistake....or a series of mistakes but the bottom line....any vector given by radar to an aircraft has to take into account the minimum safe altitude for the area being flown. The terminology difference should not have rendered that mandate invalid.
The controller if confused...and aware of being confused...should have announced his uncertainty and suggested a climb to altitude while things got sorted out. I would suggest if the pilots had sensed any uncertainty, in all liklihood they would have asked for the climb clearance or one would hope anyway.
The thrust of the BOI should be to accurately layout the facts....assess them for factors that led to the disaster and fairly descibed what those factors were without regard to who winds up with egg on their face.
The inclusion of the court martial smacks of some self serving interest by the Airships in this matter and not a seeking of justice for either the pilots or the controller.
The Chinook thread is yet another indicator of how good men can be let down by the system.