Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[walter kennedy]

The level of frustration at lack of focus and progress here reminds me of Buster Keaton's film, The Awakening.
Anyway, once again to try and draw the focus onto what is known:
Grunt – if you look at the tracks, they were only closing with the shoreline at about 20 deg – only a slight turn left would have taken them up the coast – and presumably, being over the level sea, a lot less stressful control inputs were going on compared to when they were low flying over the 10 miles or so of Antrim hills that they had crossed earlier in the flight – such a coincidence that they should fail just there, surely? It is also highly improbable that the engines would have been found closely matched and with no record of emergency power demands if they had been struggling with a control problem.
Regarding undemanded power surges – I have made the point before that had this occurred the obvious immediate response would surely have been to pull up so keeping the RPM within limits – this would have been to their advantage, a miracle if it had happened. Anyway, there are 3 things which I can think of which argue against any undemanded run-up: no history in the DECU of such; distance/time calculations by Boeing indicate that they had started to slow down (in airspeed) over the course of the leg from waypoint change to impact; the engines were found to have been at matched power (within limits normally requiring power trim by either the pilots or the FADEC and normally when in a steady state – I suggest such as level cruise, cruise climb, approach, etc).
Regarding distractions - as Cazatou so rightly said, their number one priority was to fly the aircraft – and of course, a top priority in flying an aircraft is to avoid an unintended/ unexpected contact with terrain. It would be a reasonable excuse to have over stressed an engine after ignoring a warning light because the pilots were distracted by the imminent approach of high ground – but the other way around?!!! They had ¾ of the compass to turn towards while they sorted out anything within the a/c.
Not forgetting that unless they had a reason for going there, they were already imprudently close in, in the prevailing conditions, by the time they changed waypoint if they had just meant to be chugging past to somewhere else.
So why don't you all address the issues that may explain what they may have been doing, these being:
has anyone come across the use of a domestic squawk code (as 7760 was) for exercises?(as EUROControl told me did happen on occassion back then due to the shortage of codes for special exercises);
is the type of callsign used (F4J40) appropriate for a SAR ex? (as I have been told from several sources);
has anyone on this forum landed at the LZ I have described (the one by waypoint A) and if so would you like to describe what altimeter settings you would use and what approach heading you would take? - oh, and how far away would you start to let your speed wash off?;
what is the usual way of making a call to the regional ATC on VHF when you are approaching an area for a local low level exercise under VFR and do you need a response or is it just a formality? - is this the way you give an early warning to exercise participants on the ground to stand by on the local UHF?
Anyone know a good tailor?