My reading of this is that MoD admitted liability because of Sir Clive Loader’s comment in the report that the MoD’s airworthiness regulations were not applied properly.
Instead of arguing over the finer design points of the fuel and other systems – a line which the MoD would gladly see their detractors tie themselves up in knots over - would it not be better to concentrate on the area where MoD is known to have weaknesses?
I, for one, am concerned that the BoI seemingly had such a narrow remit that it did not explore this area. Browne’s statement to the House would, I believe, have been very different had Sir Clive not said what he did.
This is not the only BoI report by any means which has alluded to such dereliction of duty. But it is the first to spell it out. Sea King ASaC. Tornado / Patriot. Both reports share one thing in common. They are particularly damning about aircraft systems, both safety related, which have clearly not been tested, installed, trialed, evaluated or introduced properly. On Sea King, it was a strobe light which the pilot had to switch off in darkness because he couldn’t see, leaving him with no forward anti collision light. (The aircraft collided almost head on). On Tornado, the IFF failure warnings were not integrated properly so the crew did not have the proper indication of system failure. (They were shot down due to misidentification). In both cases, one would expect the BoI to explore this further. They didn’t, yet the issues jump out at you. Note – they condemned a system as “unfit for purpose” but didn’t explore the evidence as to why it was fitted, removed (why?), and fitted again (why?). Nor did the Coroner. Why?? So many obvious questions but it would seem the political imperative was to prevent probing questions.
Different systems to Nimrod, but the root cause is the same. Poor application of mandated airworthiness regulations. Other similarities? Well, look at the people in MoD who ruled airworthiness, risk management, configuration control and safety were, effectively, optional. And that’s just accidents since 2003. The most casual examination of Chinook / Mull reveals precisely the same problems. So, that’s a 14 year period of neglect, at least.
Finally, I think it vitally important that the Review announced by Browne is not staffed by the people I mention, or their bagmen. It must be seen to be truly independent. The starting point is Sir Clive’s statement – the airworthiness process as not been applied properly. They must look back to understand why not, and must not confine themselves to Nimrod, as the processes apply to all aircraft and equipment. They must not be allowed to trot out the old “water under the bridge” rubbish. They were told long ago that there was a dam further downstream that was about to be breached. It was.