I hope this works……….
This is an edited (for clarity) version of the airworthiness delegation pertaining to Chinook (and all other aircraft and their equipment) at the time. (As far as my jaded memory permits!). I acknowledge titles changed almost daily at the time, but anyone remotely familiar with the MoD structure will recognise most of them. It illustrates 4 Star down to 1 Star.
Now, a simple question. In how many of those departments/directorates etc was it known that airworthiness was being compromised due to the policy changes implemented in the preceding years? (e.g. The mandated regulation to maintain airworthiness shall be ignored, but those with delegation shall still sign to say the obligation has been met).
As of 1993, I can get to 13 of those listed here. By 1998 that increases by a further 2. Many of today’s IPTs can trace their lineage directly to these directorates. Of course, there were those like AAEE (Boscombe Down) who were doing the complaining, and being ignored. For example, when they grounded the PE Fleet the week before the crash.
Other departments, like Aircraft Technical Pubs, are omitted because they only reacted to funded tasking – as funding was withdrawn, APs (including ACMs and FRCs) weren’t kept up to date. Nevertheless, the top man in such support areas would have a duty to report the impact of such cuts. (I use ATP merely as an example and do not infer they did anything wrong. Quite the contrary, they complained bitterly).
Just a simple illustration of another side of the coin that no-one, to my knowledge, has ever delved into on this or any other accident. You will appreciate all this applies equally to C130, Nimrod, Tornado etc etc.