John Purdey
You said:
Meadowbank. We seemto be back to the suggestion that the aircraft was out of control, or at least suffered serious undemanded control imputs. This is of course sheer speculation, completely lacking any proof technical or otherwise. What is more, I find it difficult to reconcile that theory with the fact that the a/c entered a climb which, had the machine been on intended track, would have enabled it to clear the hill ahead by around 300ft. But it was not on track, and the hill ahead was around 300 ft higher than the crew expected. Nor does the control theory tie up with the very heavy rudder control imput in the last few seconds of flight.The aircraft must have been under control. But we have been here before, have we not. Regards. JP
I presented undemanded control inputs as one of a number of plausible reasons for the accident. Yes, it is speculation, but speculation born of the
fact that it also happened elsewhere on the same aircraft type. True, I have no proof but neither do you. With regard to the climb you mention, we do not know the aircraft's flightpath, except that an event was recorded on Supertans at waypoint change and another event (power down) was recorded at impact. To surmise that the aircraft flew in a straight line, under control, from one to the other is worse than speculation - it is assumption!
You are also most definitely wrong about the "Nor does the control theory tie up with the very heavy rudder control input in the last few seconds of flight". Firstly, we don't know how long the rudder input was applied (no ADR) or even for sure that it was applied at all (AAIB stated that it could have been a result of the impact). Secondly, the control theory ties up perfectly with the rudder input as, if you read the account of the pilots involved in the aforementioned US Army Chinook near-accident, they state that they only brought the aircraft under control by using almost full rudder - a significant clue that we
could be dealing with a very similar incident. Further, it is not logical to reach the conclusion that "The aircraft must have been under control."
An aircraft being flown "under control" would not have ben IMC in the (estimated) attitude described by AAIB (31 deg pitch up if I recall).
I would also like to address your repeated affirmation:
The crew breached the basic rules of airmanship when faced by IMC weather over high ground
Earlier you asked whether or not the crew could see the granite of the Mull of Kintyre, on the basis that if they could not see it and pressed on then they were already negligent. Not true, I'm afraid. Given the distance form N.Ireland to the Mull, it is quite possible (from analysis of the METARs and knowing how the weather is in this part of the World) that they could already see a cloud-covered Mull at the time they coasted out, or at least soon after. The crew would have been perfectly within the rules to continue towards the Mull until they could get a better look, particularly as to avoid it would only take a turn of a few degrees. It was entirely reasonable to decide to turn a mile before the Scottish Coast as they would have been able to achieve the new heading (to Corran) without entering the weather (we know it was only over the land) or coming too close to high ground (even if they couldn't
see the granite, they would have known that it was lurking just behind the convective curtain of cloud). The fact that the weather as reported by the lighthouse keeper was deteriorating is irrelevant; at waypoint change the Chinook was not in the weather and the crew did not plan to go that way (indicated by the waypoint change on Supertans).
Yes we have been here before but please re-read my comments carefully and you will, I dare to hope, start to realise that the likelihood of a straightforward CFIT is nowhere near great enough to meet the requirements of "beyond any doubt whatsoever". Or do you continue to support the finding of Gross Negligence purely out of loyalty and/or fraternity with Sir William and/or Sir John?
With all good wishes,
Meadowbank