When hazards were identified and categorised at a meeting in August 2004, he said, the possibility of an explosion in the dry bay was graded in as "improbable".
See……….
http://www.dstan.mod.uk/dtd/data/5624.pdf
“Fibrous Polyester Material for use as a Flame and Fire Suppressant in Aircraft Dry Bays” dated March 1981.
Well, someone identified the hazard as it applied generally to aeroplanes and developed one method by which the risk could be brought ALARP, with MoD (much later) issuing a specification in 1981.
On Nimrod, MoD now acknowledge they recognised the hazard, but thought the probability of occurrence “improbable”. If one maps that to the Risk Classification Matrix (see earlier in the thread), and accepts that the Severity of Harm should the risk occur is “Catastrophic” (loss of aircraft and crew) then the risk is classified as “C” and is only Tolerable if ALARP. Therefore, the admission that it should have been “graded higher” is largely academic, as the requirement was to make it ALARP anyway. (Even if the probability had been assessed “incredible” it would still be a Class C).
So, if the report is accurate there is something missing from the evidence. Having agreed the risk was Tolerable, I’d be asking why the next mandated step of making it ALARP wasn’t taken. (And this is where you may get to the root cause, because embodiment costs money and reduces capability for a time, which would highlight the risk associated with cuts in the MRA4 programme numbers. It would also, of course, at the very least demand declaration of planning blight and a complete reassessment of MRA4 at a politically unacceptable time).
And I wouldn’t be talking about 2004, given the date of the specification for making such risks tolerable and ALARP. This is important. At that date, MoD could claim we were in “exceptional circumstances” and perhaps that they didn’t have a reasonable time to mitigate the risk. (Not that this holds water). The legal clock starts when you identify and classify.
There may indeed have been what MoD call a “design flaw” but using that phrase to explain why a properly identified risk was not mitigated to ALARP is disingenuous.