Mr Smith refers to six aircraft with the EO fit is this the current number? If he cannot get the simple facts right how can anyone trust any of the other speculation/facts in his blog/articles?
The QinetiQ report was carried out six months before XV230 exploded and refers to the situation at that time. Yes the QinetiQ team did include XV230 in their report. They also included three other aircraft in their report, all of them with the EO fit, and said the other two were in theatre so could not be covered. QinetiQ highlighted that the main problem was with those EO aircraft.
The article in today's Sunday Times is not based on speculation. It is a straightforward report of what a very damning QinetiQ report said. The blog simply refers to that. Nothing I have written since the initial accident has been based on speculation. The MoD uses that word as a smokescreen to deflect criticism. But facts do not turn into speculation just because a board of inquiry has yet to report.
Official reports, be they serious fault signals, air incident reports, BAE Systems reports, or QinetiQ reports are just that. They were certainly not speculation. For the most part they were written before the explosion and they were certainly all factual and all damning or they would not have been reportable. They are of course merely snapshots, part of an overall picture. They of course cannot be taken, on their own or collectively, as some sort of quasi-board of inquiry.
But as Tucumseh has indicated, there is damning evidence in the QinetiQ report of serious problems which have implications not just for the Nimrod fleets but across the RAF, and which, whether or not they contributed to the explosion, should be made public.
Everyone would like the BOI report to be published ASAP. But it is not the media's job to keep quiet when evidence of something going wrong emerges. As for whether or not it has helped, on at least two occasions, the board of inquiry has put back its report following information emerging in the media. That can only be because that information was not taken into account by someone contributing to the report.
I entirely understand why relatives and friends of those who died feel unhappy reading reports that refer to the incident. I have not at any point forgotten that 14 real people died, leaving behind partners, parents and children for whom I have the utmost sympathy, a fact that is clearly indicated in my blogs. But their sorrow is no reason why highly damning information like that reported by the QinetiQ team should not be made public.
For those who want to make their own choice to read the article to which the blog refers, it is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2786304.ece