I hesitate to enter this thread but to give me some street cred I am a Halton graduate servicing Victor B1, Canberra B(I)8 and Whirlwind Mk10 helicopters during my 12 years RAF service. I then spent 30 years in civvy street on helicopters, but most importantly an aircraft is an aircraft and the same principles apply to each machine. During my career I was a Flight Safety Engineer working closely with the AAIB at Farnborough and I know that those gifted guys do not dofferntiate between types of aircraft, airworthiness is airworthiness, they usually refer to expericenced licensed engineers if they require specialised knowledged of the type should this arise during their investigations. The civilian engineering system (used) to rely on Licensed Engineers to maintain standards laid down by the CAA, this meant that in practical terms that there was no higher authority to determine an aircraft's airworthiness except the manufacturer, I am not aware of anyone going to the manufacurer to overturn a decision of a LAE.
The loss of XV230 appears to be a techical disaster.
TD, sloppy maintenance was not the problem, it would appear that sloppy engineering was at fault. A maintenance engineer/fitter is only concerned with keeping the aircraft to a standard laid down by their superiors the engineering branch, in accordance with their maintenance procedures. A fuel leak was reported to be not being able to be reproduced on the ground, this suggests that the fault only happened in the air with all the expected flexing of the aircraft distorting the fuel couplings alloowing fuel to escape. If this happened in a civil aircraft the AAR system would be filled with a dye and flown for a post flight inspection to determine which seal leaked. As this was not apparently carried out it suggests that it was not possible to blank off the system to enable the test.
I understand that the AAR was devised to cater for aircraft flying to the Falklands some 25 years ago, a major modification in CAA parlance. Any aircraft modification that is to be installed should have a maintenencde policy, devised by the design engineers which should cate foe troubleshooting of the system. This should have ben sorted out post-Falklands.
AS for inspecting FRS seals by dismantling the couplings, the RAF were right injudging that this would cause more problems when they were reassembled, in my experience. We used to use the chalk spray from the Ardrox 996 crack test kit to determine between to likely faulty seals. If this not feasible because of so many leaks being the norm is incredible.