As Lab Queen points out, the coroner certainly did not criticise the board of inquiry. He in fact commended the board for finding the design fault, the co-location of hot air pipes and fuel pipes in the No7 tank dry bay with no fire detection or suppression system present.
That said, one of the possible causes of the leaking fuel put forward by the board of inquiry, the idea that fuel blowing off from the No 1 tank travelled along the side of the aircraft and into the No 7 tank dry bay, was disproved by the evidence to the inquest. BAE Systems experts showed conclusively that this could not have happened.
But anyone who has read the board’s report will know that this was only one of two possibilities it put forward for the source of the fuel that led to the fire, albeit what it saw as the most likely. The other, a leak from fuel pipes inside the aircraft, was assessed by the experts as the most likely source which is why the misalignment and seals issues have been raised.
One thing the coroner did say with regard to the board of inquiry was that there ought to be an independent inquiry system, not because the BoI in this case did anything wrong. But it was clear that in practice if not in theory there were limitations on what it could do, particularly when relying for some of its evidence on the IPT. Just one example: as Tuc has pointed out a number of times, the QinetiQ report on the wing tank leaks was not read by the BoI because the wing tank leaks were irrelevant to the XV230 incident. But the report actually looked much wider than the wing tanks and in particular noted that some leaks inside the aircraft were not being followed up because they could not be replicated on the ground.
When the fuel leak occurred inside the bomb bay of another Nimrod last November and it made an emergency landing at Kandahar, Glenn Torpy said that the fleet was grounded because the leak could not be replicated on the ground. He looked very surprised when I pointed out that this was precisely what QinetiQ had said of previous leaks in its 2006 report. Why was he of all people not briefed on this before he faced the press.
As for the ALARP issue, which is the reason the coroner called for the fleet to be grounded, EdSet said:
If Gp Capt Hickman, as the Delegated Airworthiness Authority, has stated that the Nimrod currently IS NOT ALARP, we are in trouble. I wasn't there to hear his words on oath, but if he used those words, or similar, he is contradicting virtually everyone (from SoS down to NLS liney) involved with the aircraft. Given his appointment, there should be no way that he would be contradicted by his superiors. I believe he has been mis-represented here.
Not misrepresented and certainly not contradicting SoS, who wrote to Angus Robertson, MP for Kinloss and deputy chairman of the all-party RAF group, last week to say:
During defence questions in the House on 28 April 2008 I undertook to write to you about a QinetiQ safety report concerning the RAF’s Nimrod aircraft. You asked how many of the 30 recommendations made in the report had been complied with (Official Report: Column 4)
You did not specify which QinetiQ report you were referring to but I believe it to be the Nimrod Fuel System Safety Review Report dated October 2007 which was recently released under the Freedom of Information Act. This report is an interim report and is part of a more comprehensive safety review of the Nimrod Fuel System being carried out by the Department in accordance with recommendation four of the Board of Inquiry Report into the loss of Nimrod XV230.
Of the 30 recommendations contained in the QinetiQ report: 21 have been accepted and are being implemented; 3 are being considered for implementation and a further 6 are on hold as they relate to Air-to-Air Refuelling. Following the leak incident on Nimrod XV235 on 5 November 2007, all Air-to-Air Refuelling on the Nimrod fleet was suspended. This suspension remains in force.
(my italics)