Having watched the saga unfold, from standing on the Mull the morning after the accident, to the present day, I have always refrained from applying the all-to-easy tones of conspiracy to a tragedy that ended in mystery. The loss was too great, too important, to encourage an already growing cottage industry of theorists that has developed over the years. Especially with no evidence pointing to a cause.
But today, on reading Tandemrotor's entries, I am left with no option but to conclude this has been a cover-up. Pure and simple.
I never wanted to say that. I have fought the instinct for years. I needed the clear proof. Maybe I blinded myself for too long. When we produced the Channel 4 documentary (and, critically, its revised version which included the Fadec concerns for the first time) I always argued "cover-up" was unfair to the MoD. A cover-up needed to be shown, not just spoken.
I was generous, to a fault, as I tried to walk in the ministry's shoes.
But to now realise the sham that was the MoD's submission to the Fatal Accident Inquiry is to find it in contempt of Sheriff Sir Stephen Young's court. To discover this material A) exists and B) can be ruled irrelevant is to have stood in that pale blue painted room for weeks in Paisley, and looked in the eye of the relatives of the dead and to have said nothing. It is the cardinal sin of omission.
It is a morally bankrupt position. It is feral; it is squalid. It is, simply, wrong.
Let's go for a bike ride