I was an eye witness at the Court Martial. I fully support Dick Doleman in his rejection of parts of the BoI report. I agree with him that the crash scenario put forward by the Board is wrong.
The Board accepts that the eye witnesses were out walking in the southern Cairngorms that day. It accepts that they were where they claimed to be to the south east of Ben MacDui. It accepts that they saw two jet aircraft. The Board does not accept that the jets seen by the eye witnesses were the F-15s that crashed on the east side of Ben MacDui's summit. The Board maintains that the two jets seen by the witnesses were Tornados.
There were three sets of eye witnesses at the GCM. They had no knowledge of each other until reading press reports of the trial. Some of the witnesses made statements to the police before the jets were found. These statements were considered by the GCM and deemed to be compatible with the evidence they had given to the court.
There are several pieces of hard evidence in relation to the eye witness accounts which are at variance with the Board's view that the witnesses did not see the F-15s.
* All of the witnesses stated they had seen two jets flying close to each other. The Tornados were not in close formation but flying in 'loose trail'. I take that to mean there would have been at least 100 yards separating them - much more probably. There is no opitcal illusion that could transform a low level loose trail so that it appeared to be close formation to ground observers.
* The Tornado pilots gave an account of their route from Braemar to the entrance to the Lairig Ghru at the GCM. The path described by the pilots did not go over or near the eye witness positions when they observed the jets. These positions are accepted by the Board.
* The times the three sets of witnesses stated that they saw the jets were all signifiicantly later than the time at which the Tornados were approaching the Lairig Ghru.
* Three eye witnesses were certain they saw twin-tailed jets.
Individually these pieces of evidence are sufficient to discount the Board's crash hypothesis. Taken together they make an overwhelming case against it.