This thread remains vitally important and it is heartwarming to have so many posts from so many interested parties. For as Brian says, there is no expiry date to this, unless and until the MoD remove the stain.
The late Lord Jauncey, who chaired the Lords' select committee, referenced a point made by Lord Tombs that I think we also do not want to lose sight of (in addition to pallet detachments, DASH runaways, FADEC) - and that is the case of the fractured tie-bolt.
Tony Cable, the AAIB inspector and his team suggest, though do not confirm, "impact forces" caused the break. Lord Tombs, engineer by training, posited the possibility of pre-impact failure, which would be catastrophic as the tie-bolt linked the pilot controls and the hydraulic servos operating the flight control systems. "The bolt was badly manufactured, with a second, redundant and roughly drilled split-pin hole in the threaded area."
I concede this is just another possible cause, but it is possible. There was a lot relying on that tie-bolt, wasn't there?
Separately, Sir John Day has clarified since he wrote his reviewing opinion appended to the BoI that he does not know the height or speed of the aircraft at Waypoint change. He says it is not that important because negligence occurred by the time the Waypoint change was made (at a time unknown).
The belief the crew had inputted a WP change a postulated 18-21 seconds/1.75km before impact was found wanting when Boeing conceded the simulation could in no way be used to prove, what was at best a theory working backwards.
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From the Lords' report:
"The Boeing simulation was exactly that—a simulation, not a factual reconstruction .... Since our primary interest is flight safety, our comments are based on balanced information and probability rather than absolute fact since, in the engineering safety realm at least, things are usually more approximate than absolute. In many instances with aircraft accidents, what may be considered as fact is not really fact at all and may even be contradictory of other 'facts'. For this reason every 'fact' must be weighed according to its relative probability of truth. It is rarely known with absolute certainty exactly what all the reasons for an aircraft accident are. One can only determine a most probable cause; as many accidents in the past have demonstrated, even with cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders, there is always room for doubt".
I (Jauncey) agree wholeheartedly with that standpoint but, taken in conjunction with the "remarkably thin evidence", it supports the conclusion of the committee that the conclusions of the board of inquiry did not satisfy the rigorous standards of absolute certainty required of them.
End of Lords' excerpt
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Add the fact Treasury had voted the money for black boxes for the Chinook fleet in May 1989 but never installed them and investigators were flying blind.
I was curious to know more from Boeing, so I visited them at their military plant in Philadelphia, where ZD576 was born and updated. The Spanish fleet of Chinooks was being updated at that time and Boeing reps. graciously showed me around, allowing me to see the 'broom cupboard' controls area, the wiring, where a key tie-bolt would go. No-one at Boeing I spoke to knows why the Chinook crashed.
The MoD has had a special team of civil servants working the Chinook file. The aftermath has taken up hundreds if not thousands of hours of their time. Brian's suggestion that a more accurate finding would be to say Cause Not Positively Established/Unknown has merit. After all, all we want is the truth and it is that finding that seems the most truthful based on the available facts.
For too long we have fought this fight, and we will not give up until there is justice. But the longer it goes on the more conversations are brought to mind, and I include just one to finish.
In 1997, I visited the Chief of the General Staff at his office at MoD HQ to talk about the accident. The CGS in 1997 was Sir Roger Wheeler, who had been the former GOC Northern Ireland at the time of the accident and who knew many, if not all, of the passengers. He doesn't know what caused the accident but relied on the RAF's version for an answer. They were the experts, right? The pilots were to blame, right?
But because he relied on the official finding Gen. Wheeler didn't know Jon Tapper had asked to replace the Mk2 with a more reliable Mk1 for the VVIP sortie, he didn't know Rick Cook had increased his life insurance weeks before the crash and the General didn't know the Boscombe Down testers had grounded the aircraft the day before the accident because they found it unserviceable. He couldn't know because none of that was included in the BoI report, with the MoD citing them irrelevancies. It took years for it to come out.
In any campaign, fight or just daily life one expects to sometimes be knocked backwards but the supreme strength of the argument regarding this injustice comes from the knowledge there has been not a single piece of evidence to emerge in all these years that sets the campaign for justice back even an inch. In fact, to the contrary, every single development in this saga over the years has only strengthened the Tapper and Cook family position, which is one of simplicity itself. Prove the boys caused the accident and we will shut up. But if you can't then please, finally consider the facts again and this time conclude what morality and orders dictate, that in cases where there is doubt deceased air crew must be given the benefit of that doubt.
The man who wrote that rule, AP3207 of the Queen's Regulations, is a now retired RAF Air Commodore. I spoke to him about the issue. Had Sir John and Sir William applied the rules? The answer was clear: "No."
I'm obliged