Would ACoveee state where it says in the Nimrod FRCs that there is no requirement to land at the nearest suitable airfield in the event of a serious internal/external fuel leak?
The FRCs and aircrew manuals are not there to provide airmanship. Even the engine fire drill or the total engine failure drill does not say "land as soon as possible". Therefore, it will not give the opposite advice either. The FRC tells the crew which switches and levers to operate in various circumstances. Thereafter the captain decides what to do.
We have been training and practicing the handling of fuel leaks since the day the Nimrod MR1 first flew. If the leak can be stopped: stop it and think about the next move, and there are many. If the leak cannot be stopped and a fire is a possibility (even in area with fire extinguishant), an immediate diversion has to be considered. If fire isn't a possibility, other options come into play. If the leak has stopped and fire is not a possibility, more options come into consideration. There is no standard answer to any of this, hence no directions in the FRCs.
Nigegilb, please forgive me if you are a relative of the lost crew, but what drives you in this discussion? I am current Nimrod aircrew and I have a vested interest in the aircraft and the safety of my colleagues. As I have indicated earlier this weekend, there are many people here at Kinloss who read this forum and they form opinions (and personal feelings) based on the submissions made by the contributors. As aircrew, some of the lesser experienced people are really desperate to know if AAR is safe. Crew captains, sat in the front of the jet, trying to locate the tanker in scattered cloud do not want their copilots, radar ops and beam lookouts being distracted by thoughts of, "we should not be doing this, I read it on pprune, etc"
In anticipation of your answer that you, too, have everyone's safety in mind and that by "exposing" how wrong it is to continue with AAR, that pprune will convince CAS to stop AAR and then we will all be safe: Well, pprune has no voice, so you are wasting your time but, more importantly, you and the other critics of AAR are definitely causing distraction where it is needed least: on the front line, above the enemy and during a much needed procedure.