Firstly, my apologies for my absence but it was unavoidable. I believe Brian Dixon made my apologies at the time. Secondly, I doubt that I will be able to contribute as regulary as I did for a little time yet.
dalek - your post 2054
"I do not question the helicopter experience of AM Day but Sqn Ldr Burkes experience was both more current and relevant to type. Any comments?"
Well, yes actually.
At the same time as the Chinook BOI was going through HQ 1 GP there was, amongst the dozen or so other Aircraft Accident BOI's going through Group at that time, a BOI into a Tornado crash which had happened at a well known NATO range in Sardinia.
The Accident aircraft was No 2 of a pair doing practice laydown attacks. As the No 2 was approaching on his first pass there was a muffled thump and No 2 engine ran down. The Pilot carried out the shutdown drill, informed his Nav they had lost No 2 engine, called the Range to abandon his attack run and informed his leader of the problem and asked for a visual inspection. He then instructed the Nav to read the engine shut down checks.
The section leader turned tightly in behind his No2 and saw that the entire rear end if the Tornado was a mass of flames and ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft. This the crew did and the aircraft crashed into the sea.
The BOI President was as a Tornado Sqn Ldr Navigator, with a Flt Lt tornado Pilot and a Flt Lt Tornado Eng O making up the BOI. The BOI, after considering all the evidence, found the Tornado crew negligent to a gross degree for failing to carry out the fire drill on the failed engine.
The salvage crew who had raised the wreck of the Tornado had done an excellent job and amongst their finds was the CVR; thus we had a tape recording of the final moments. When this was played one thing was immediately apparent : there was NO aural fire warning!! Nor was there a visual warning on the MWS ( The analysis of the engine data did show that the fire warning did illuminate approx 6 times -each time for a duration of approx 1/10 th of a second. If you saw it flicker then by the time you had blinked and looked again it had gone).
My own view was that an engine which had obviously had some kind of mechanical failure MAY catch fire, but that it would be foolish to carry out the fire drill as a matter of routine because if it caught fire a minute or so later you have already used your one & only chance to extinguish it.
Searching through the rest of the BOI we came upon 2 more interesting items:
No1. The engine bay doors had been found on the beach on the run in to the Range. These had taken with them a large portion of the engine bay fire detection system. The loss of the doors also meant that the fire extinguishent would simply dissipate into the atmosphere.
No2. The explosion which lead to the fire had destroyed the HP fuel cock so that, no matter what selections were made by the Pilot, it would have been impossible to stem the flow of fuel feeding the fire in the engine bay.
The AOC set aside the finding of "Gross negligence" against the crew and absolved them from blame EVEN THOUGH HE HAD NO EXPERIENCE ON THE TORNADO WHATSOEVER.
There have been several people on this thread who have expressed the opinion that an AOC should never be able to alter the findings of a "properly constituted BOI".
I am not one of those; I doubt that Tornado crew are either.