John Nichol
I am sure you realise that for an article to be effective in refuting Bill Wratton’s, you will have to do more than reiterate the fact that there was no physical evidence for the finding - because the author never said there was.
So you will have to come up with something new, or at the least (IMHO) answer questions like those in my post here (made by chance the day before the article came out)
To make life easier here is a copy of that post, please read it carefully John, because I wanted to give the crew every possible benefit of the doubt:
Copy
It is with great fear and trepidation that I write this in case it will upset several contributors to this and the earlier threads – but I would genuinely like people’s views on the following couple of points.
If the system ordered the chaps to fly the wrong aircraft for all the wrong reasons on the wrong job and left them with no alternative but to do it at low level (and for the record I do NOT find it impossible to believe that it might have) then the first thing I have difficulty with is why the trip was not aborted at some stage after getting airborne and before there was any risk of getting to the high ground on track? (horse to water stuff)
Surely all of us agree that any modern military aeroplane is sufficiently complex that it is not difficult to find fault with it after getting airborne. Even if calling the fault has an element of judgement in it (which will be queried back on the ground) surely any crew that has reached the stage of doing a trip like this is both up to and entitled to such a call?
I guess that makes me feel the chaps were content to carry on.
But say I am totally wrong, and they were very unhappy (but did not think of the above way out) then would we not all slow down a bit or change track when approaching the land?
NB I am NOT saying it was their fault. I am just pointing out what a terrible and genuine puzzle the whole tragedy has become.
Perhaps that is why the topic will not go away - it is simply one of the most uncertain aviation accidents so far. So many things do not add up (including my two points above?).
End of copy
Good luck John, I don’t envy you your task.
John F