Just for the record ExRigger, and not said in anger at all, merely for clarification. You said:
Thanks MS, I would rather take credence from that report than from a newspaper, even though in this case they seem to have actually got their facts right. Allthough I will add the newspaper did not appear to have the timescales, so the comments about making things look worse than they are still stands, why use the full facts when missing some out makes a better story and actually makes things look worse than they are.
If you read
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2937248.ece you will see that the first two paragraphs read:
THE manufacturer of the RAF’s Nimrod spy planes had warned of “frequent” fires on board the aircraft 18 months before one exploded over Afghanistan last September, killing all 14 men on board.
The BAE Systems report said there had been 880 fires or “smoke-related incidents” on the aircraft over the preceding 20 years, an average of 40 a year.
It was of course 22 years not 20. But that appears to have been a typing error at some point in the editing process. It was not an attempt to deceive and the average of 40 a years is accurate for 880 over 22 years.
The Observer meanwhile made it clear that the period of the 880 incidents covered the period between 1982 and 2004.