Da4orce, you say
I believe that the Coroner actually went into more detail earlier in his summing up, he also made mention of a similar incident on XV230 just 2 weeks earlier.
I do have contemporaneous notes of this, but at some stages in his very lengthy narrative verdict, Mr Walker was going through his stuff at a great rate of knots, and in considerable detail. I’m afraid my record-keeping was not always up to snuff! However, here’s what I think happened.
The coroner said he believed the fire came from fuel leaks. He said there was no evidence to support the BoI theory of fuel from a blow-off getting into dry bay 7. He referred to the video, that we all saw many times, of a big fuel leak (on the ground) which could pass into dry bay 7. But it was clear that such leaks, which may occur when airborne, are not always able to be reproduced on the ground.
He did indeed mention that XV230 had had a transient leak two weeks before the crash, and could have been lost then.
So he believes that the fuel for the fire came from leaks in couplings. He accepted evidence that refuel/defuel system leaks came from misaligned couplings rather than seal failure.
Over the last two or three days of the inquest, he had been pursuing a theory that the fatal leaks may have occurred within No 3 engine. This idea came about because there should, in theory, have been no pressure left in the refuel/defuel system to produce enough fuel to sustain the fire. But fuel in the high pressure system of the engine would be at 1200psi, and any leak there would supply more than enough fuel to sustain the fire.
The coroner commended Mick Bell, who was representing himself over the death of his brother, FS Gerard Bell, for his work on this aspect in particular. That research had shown that an engine could lose as much as 15 gallons a minute without a loss of power of more than 7%, and other research showed that this fuel could indeed have migrated into dry bay 7 via the airflow on the underside of the wing.
Despite his dismissal of the BoI finding on the blow-off theory, the coroner did, as Laboratoryqueen and Mick Smith say, go out of his way to commend the BoI team.
For anyone who has not yet discovered it, Mick Smith has another coruscating and scathing article in today’s Sunday Times, which should be mandatory reading for all concerned.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3998966.ece
airsound