Originally Posted by
paddyfactor
As some one who lost a father and best friend that night on the mull I could not agree more.
PF, my sincere but belated condolences for your loss. As a very ex member of the RAF I feel a bit of an outsider on this Forum. Posting on such fraught and raw threads as this, the Nimrod and the Hercules ones verges on the presumptuous, and I hesitate to do so every time. But by the same token brave and encouraging replies from yourself and others who have been bereaved by these tragic accidents reassures me that my humble contributions have some merit. Personally I am appalled at the way the character of the Service I left 33 years ago has changed beyond recognition, and for the worse I fear. Pilot error has always been a convenient hook to hang all manner of technical and institutional shortcomings on, and such a finding has often constituted a miscarriage of justice for that reason. But in the "Chinook Affair" we have a miscarriage that is grosser than I personally am aware of in RAF history. A finding of gross negligence with only the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence against two deceased officers is outrageous, and would have been unheard of in my day. It raises very uncomfortable questions about the degrees of morality extant in the higher command of the service. But such worries are secondary to the need to reverse this outrage and restore in full the reputations of these fine men. Let Right be Done!