The original BOI didn't have time to interview the eyewitnesses as the Court Martial proceedings halted the inquiry.
You have me baffled with this comment. You obviously have inside knowledge as to how this BOI was conducted and you infer that the original BOI had the intent of interviewing the eyewitnesses. I think the following comments are worthy of consideration; please correct me if I am wrong.
The BOI was in progress but at some stage the process was handed over to the prosecuting authority which led to the decision to hold a Court Martial. I identify that point as sometime shortly after the RAF Police warned the controller that charges might be brought against him. I listened to the entire transcript of the RAF police interview of the controller being read out at the Court Martial; I, amongst many other observers, could not identify a reason for the interview terminating with the controller being warned that they (the RAF Police) had sufficient evidence for charges to be brought against him. It seemed very pre-determined. I assume that the RAF Police, not being expert aviators or air traffic controllers, were not acting independently of the BOI and would have been briefed by the President of the Board prior to the interview taking place. One must assume that the RAF Police would have reported back to the President before a decision was made by him to place the proceedings in the hands of the prosecuting authority who then decided to formulate the serious charges and hold a Court Martial. If my theory is correct, it was not the Court Martial that prevented the interviewing of eyewitnesses, it was the BOI decision to hand over the proceedings to the prosecuting authority before important due process was complete. After all, the eyewitnesses may have determined that no charges should be brought to bear and the importance of this is not just a trifling matter in what should be a fair judicial process. I just can’t imagine a civil case of equivalent magnitude being handed from the police to the CPS without known eyewitnesses being interviewed and I wouldn’t expect the CPS to let such an oversight pass without question; obviously, the RAF prosecuting authority didn’t chose to question the BOI ,or, were not made aware that there were any eyewitnesses. There seemed to be an unseemly haste to bring very serious charges and convene a Court Martial and there has to be an identifiable chain of responsibility in this process somewhere. I note that your first post on this matter included the statement “yes the Court Martial coming when it did was a mistake”. Can you expand upon this ‘mistake’?