John Blakeley
Regarding your airworthiness comments, you know we sing from the same hymn sheet. There are so many documented failures in the application of MoD’s own mandated procedures and processes that their incompetence, and abrogation of responsibility and Duty of Care, has not been in doubt for many years.
However, this does not apply across the board. Your list of airworthiness elements at #811, which you acknowledge as incomplete, omits one very important factor - human input. There are good and bad everywhere. That is why, in our field, complex programmes are often delivered with effortless competence, ahead of time, under cost and to a better performance (yes, it can be done), while simple programmes become disasters. The trouble is; the former raise the benchmark of expectation. The “guilty” are termed an “embarrassment to the Department” and are offloaded at the first opportunity. The reason? Simple. If others, who have previously set a much lower benchmark yet been marked high, cannot match the new mark, then they must be marked lower in their next annual report. This is difficult to explain and manage, so it is easier to get rid of the problem. Never mind that the outcome can be huge delays and cost over-runs.
You mention AvP / Def Stan 00-970. I well recall one bollocking I got for insisting this be implemented. “Def Stans are not mandatory”. When asked him what standard I should apply (as I must apply something), I got no reply. His knowledge of standards, never mind their implementation, was on a par with most of MoD – learnt or overheard at a half day seminar (which probably took up one page in a 4 page c.v.). If MoD continues to employ non-technical staff like this as programme managers on technical projects ……. He (and others like him) was clearly pretty clever, in his own field. But if I decide to spend money on making an aircraft safe (which is not just within my remit, but an obligation), I do not want him having the authority to instruct me not to, just because it highlights the fact that he, or one of his mates, screwed up and signed to say it was airworthy in the first place. Nor do I want the 2*, 4* and above supporting him, just to avoid the embarrassment of having to admit their policy of ridding MoD of technical project managers (promulgated in 1996 by CDP) was barking. Another fundamental issue….. As a non-engineer, he/they do not have the “technical approval” signature. Why, then, are they permitted to make engineering design decisions, or over-rule such decisions already made by engineers who have the formal delegation?
Def Stan 00-970 is important. Look at this (everyone, please pay attention, it concerns YOUR aircraft).
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/564AA...i_sea_king.pdf
Para 141. The… (anti collision light system) .. DOES NOT COMPLY with Def Stan 00-970 Vol 2 Ch 110 being located in a position detrimental to the crews’ vision. The requirement to turn it off in flight renders it UNFIT FOR PURPOSE.
Note - “Interferes with the crews’ vision”. Earlier in the report - “disorientating”. Pretty damning, eh? The aircraft collided at night. 7 dead. One would think this element would be explored in forensic detail.
But it doesn’t say much else. No indication that anyone asked “Why/How was if fitted. By Whom? Was it appraised by the Aircraft DA? Was it simply read across from another Mark of aircraft without a Trail Installation and proper trials? Given open-source photographic evidence shows it was in the previous iteration of the aircraft (noted in BOI), but removed and not in the Trials Installation aircraft for the new Mark (not noted), did anyone (IPT, BOI or Coroner) ask why it was removed, and then re-fitted? Presumably someone, years before the crash (TI picture is dated 2000, crash 2003), thought it should be removed for some reason. And why was it re-fitted, in the same place, and still, according to the BOI, unfit for purpose? Importantly, was it discussed at the (mandated) Aircraft installation Critical Design Review? Was such a CDR undertaken by MoD, and approved by MoD as part of a formal contract milestone? I’ve known them to be waived! If any of these questions haven’t been answered satisfactorily, may I suggest (a) the MoD have been somewhat less than open with the BOI and Coroner, thus (b) rendering both their verdicts unsafe. Heard that one before.
But then, 00-970 is not mandatory (to some protected species). Not sure the BOI, the Coroner or the families would agree. (And I apologise sincerely if this upsets anyone).
The point I am making here, and which John makes so eloquently, is that there are many common factors between the various incidents discussed here. (Mull, Hercules, Tornado, Sea King, Nimrod). But MoD seeks to deny this. The individual IPTs (none of whom existed when the critical decisions were made) are stovepiped and they just dismiss any notion of systematic failure of process or procedure with “this is the first such accident”, “our procedures are robust” or similar platitudes. But ask yourselves, at what level above the IPTs do these “isolated” factors converge? And what rulings have been made at this level. Oh, delivery of safety and airworthiness is optional. (Not to everyone apparently, just the chosen few). Funding to maintain safety and airworthiness to be slashed. Systems Integration can be ignored. The effects were predictable, predicted, and ignored.
Instead of always thinking of their next promotion, these people would do well to consider their duty. In days gone by this meant something else.