From The Sunday Times
March 18, 2007
RAF rebels quit over fuel danger in ageing spy plane
Michael Smith
E-MAILS from RAF flight crew allege that Nimrod spy planes are being kept airborne despite repeated problems with fuel leaks such as the one suspected of causing the deaths of 14 servicemen.
The Sunday Times revealed last year that a fractured fuel pipe had led a 37-year-old Nimrod to explode over southern Afghanistan in September, killing all on board.
Now e-mails from flight crew at the Nimrod’s base at RAF Kinloss in northeast Scotland show that there have been six fuel leaks on board the aircraft since the explosion. But such is the pressure to keep the plane airborne to collect intelligence over Afghanistan and Iraq that they have been grounded just once — last month.
Crews have been ordered to resume the practice of air-to-air refuelling — the Nimrod that crashed had just refuelled in mid-air and the board of inquiry believes the pressure from the fuel pumped into the aircraft caused the leak in the fuel line.
Escaping vapour was ignited either by an electrical fault or hot air and the resulting blaze caused the starboard wing fuel tank to catch fire and explode. A Harrier filmed the incident, following the Nimrod down to 3,000ft, where it broke up.
Leaked e-mails from a number of aircrew describe how morale has plummeted because of pressure to keep the ageing aircraft flying.
They state that crew are leaving the Kinloss base “in droves”, either by resigning or demanding transfers. “It’s not a nice place to work just now,” one Nimrod crew member said.
“Confidence in both the aircraft and the hierarchy is at an all-time low. Ground crew are leaving in droves and a number of aircrew, pilots, engineers and back end [surveillance operators], are jumping ship.
“More worrying are the six major leaks we have had since the accident and the hurry to resume air-to-air refuelling after each one.”
Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, insisted in a statement last week that the aircraft was safe and was being flown in “adherence to the procedures detailed within military airworthiness regulations”.
The RAF’s 17 Nimrod MR2s are based on the De Haviland Comet, the world’s first commercial airliner which began flying in 1949.
The MoD said a small number of aircrew had asked to leave Kinloss in January “as a result of increased job availability in the civil sector”.