nige, I haven't had time yet to read the whole thing, but the underlying tone I detect is acute MoD embarrassment over something they hoped would simply go away.
The aircraft commander's prompt actions in landing as soon as reasonably possible with this leaky old beast are indeed praiseworthy; that the incident then leaked out into the public domain seems to have given cause to spite - hence the irrelevant comments about ' unnecessarily increased workload due to flying and communicating at the same time' or whatever to stick the knife in where it doesn't belong.
Thumbs up to the crew who were in the dark as to circumstances that had killed their colleagues a year earlier.
Seconded!!