Hi
I have just been reading the Parliamentary Questions concerning Hercules Safety thread (page 7) and was reminded of some comments which have been posted on this thread regarding John and Rick; “if they thought they weren’t familiar/confident in the aircraft they had a duty not to fly it”.
Before I continue I must stress that I believe our AT fleet have no option other than to continue to operate with their aircraft as equipped, duty is duty. I also believe they will be trying to influence the system, however, and this will unintentionally sound cheap, they have to pay the mortgage.
I know John pushed the boundaries as far as could, without being removed from theatre, to delay the Mk II Chinook coming to Ireland. Why? Well we (4 pilots, 4 crewmen) were an isolated community. We had been at Odiham during the build up to the arrival of the Mk II and were party to all the doubts and fears of the time which were not relieved by our brief (3 hour?) conversion some six weeks earlier (no 'official'documents). This insecurity was compounded by the plethora of incident signals, rumours from Boscombe, calls to Sqn and finally Boscombes’ refusal/delay to fly.
One particularly poignant memory is sitting with John a couple of weeks prior to the crash, the pair of us planning out this very trip, so that we could use the fuel plot as an additional argument for a letter John was working on to delay introduction. If John ever sent that letter I will never know, it would appear the MOD are unsure of its existence.
The day the Mk II arrived in theatre John, Rick, mate and I literally crawled all over it with a set of GS screwdrivers following wires to see how it worked. 36 Hours later John and Rick where dead and I was at home having flown the MK I back.
Within 48 hours (possibly less, it was a long time ago) I was back in Ireland (possibly the next MK II sortie in theatre) and an engine ‘failed’ itself on start.
Black days, thank you all for your support.
W 5
Edited to change 'cooked' with 'failed'.
Last edited by Whooper5; 2nd Apr 2006 at 08:57.