And if a civilian operator did this....
The RAF Nimrod aircraft that exploded in mid-air over Afghanistan killing all 14 servicemen on board was “beyond its sell-by date”, a former senior air force commander admitted at an inquest yesterday.
Wing Commander John Bromehead, the officer commanding Logistics Support Wing at RAF Kinloss, home of the Nimrods, at the time of the crash in September 2006, believed the accident was caused by leaking fuel igniting on a hot air pipe. The 37-year-old surveillance aircraft burst into flames at 3,000ft.
He told the Oxford hearing: “The bathtub curve is a general engineering principle, that is when something gets old it is more likely to break. I did have concerns that the Nimrod may be hitting the far end of the bathtub curve.” Wing Commander Bromehead revealed that in recent years there had been “a dilution of skills and experience” among RAF engineers, which made it more likely that problems with aircraft could be missed.
Continual cost-cutting and management restructuring had created “turmoil” in the RAF, which was why he had decided to leave the air force.