Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[walter kennedy]

Chugalug2
<<Why route A,B instead of H,B as planned? … To alter and shorten NI overflight (security?)>>
Check out this 1:250,000 chart on which I have marked the two routes:



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Aldergrove to Carnlough (the route that they took) is not significantly shorter than waypoint H (Curran) to the coast – and it crosses the metropolis of Antrim and the hazard of the Antrim hills whereas the latter is over low population areas and is flatter country. Further, Aldergrove to H is mainly across Lough Neagh and low pop rural. Overall, Ald to H to B seems an obvious route for LL – and of course, there would have been no need to go right to H, the corner could be cut.
<<...to fly by the Mull for some unknown reason (pax interest?)>> Well it would hardly have been for the scenery as, with the southerly wind, the clag would have covered most of the Mull. I have suggested before that at least some of the passengers would have been interested in the HC2's ability to get into a spot in adverse weather if a demonstration of such was the case – the advantage that the HC2 had over the HC1 Chin was that the on board equipment for the CPLS gave bearing as well as range to the ground kit – so if you had an operator in a known position with a PRC112, you had an all weather approach capability – very handy if you needed an extraction in a hurry and the conditions were bad.


<<an unbelievably botched attempt to overfly the Mull having encountered IMC? >> I've covered this before, recently – the planning for the flight gave rise to the conclusion by the pilots involved that only LL VFR was possible due to fuel and lack of alternates – if they had gone up into IMC, their whole plan and schedule would have been blown, not to mention the icing issue. So why would they risk blowing their VIP ferry flight by going anywhere near the Mull without good reason?


<<None of those, or no doubt half a dozen other reasons, would have any significance to my conviction that this was an "eruption" of an Airworthiness condition, other than the location of its occurrence.>> Yup, hell of a coincidence, a control jam just there and clearing itself in the last seconds – and requiring that they had gotten so close for it to be critical without any sane reason for them going so close – and a control jam that, in a very unstable twin rotor, kept the a/c wings level and following for about a mile the track that the HP seemed to be interested in judging by his HoSI, without plumetting or zooming – were not the other occurences of jams that are known about such that the a/c behaved erratically (a barrel role in one case)? Even if HC2 Chinooks had been dropping out of the sky on a regular basis due to control jams, the odds of it occurring at this point in this way are just too great to be worthy of consideration.


<<Was the accident caused by such an "eruption", by an abortive attempt to land at the Mull LZ whether being misdirected or no, or an unbelievably botched attempt to overfly the Mull having encountered IMC? You will realise I am sure that the last two scenarios would both involve pilot error, perhaps negligent, perhaps Grossly Negligent. >> Not so in the case of an approach to an LZ as part of a planned exercise if “misdirected” - that LZ, as I have tried to explain earlier, is a bit of a “perch” - although roomy, its threshold is a 300 ft precipice and so a slow hovering approach would be a nightmare with the wind, etc, - a smooth fast approach with a neat flare into the ground effect would be the preferred way (like plonking onto a helideck in blustery conditions) – but an overshoot would be dodgy, too fast and, well, we know what can happen – so accurate closing range is critical and this would have been appreciated before any such exercise and the responsibility for the risks would have to have been shared with those approving it – so it could hardly be the fault of the pilots if they were getting erroneous readings and perhaps even misleading encouragement (on the UHF guard frequency that the HP had selected on his intercom) by some rrrsole who was expected to have been on the LZ but actually was ½ mile or so up the hill.


<<Your belief (as I understand it) is that it was to cover up a covert operation that went wrong, or even a planned murder that went right! >> Not exactly, I believe, from analysis of the available data, that there was a planned demonstration/ trial/ exercise of the HC2's capabilities involving a fast approach in marginal weather to a known LZ on the Mull (much used up until that time) which was an ideal location for demonstrating such approaches as the weather was predictable and localised on the Mull;
The crew would have had to be relying upon a special procedure in the vicinity of the Mull to have attempted that approach in those conditions and that procedure would have had to have involved a third party and equipment on the ground;
The evidence is that they were misled as to their range and bearing to that LZ such that it appeared that they were being guided to a point just over ½ a mile further up the slope;
Whatever this procedure and equipment, there was the possibility that an operator on the ground had got it wrong, for example, by being out of position;
I believe that the RAF/MOD may believe that this was just human error but it would have been an embarrassment if it emerged that any such risky exercise had been sanctioned with the security team on board – and so leapt at the chance to get out of it smelling of roses by blaming the pilots.
Beyond this I am only speculating:
I think that the idea of blaming the pilots came from the politicians who feared public unrest if there had been any chance of sabotage and so the pilots had to be blamed so confidently that there was no doubt whatsoever that it was a simple case of pilot error – hence gross negligence – the verdict implies to legal minds (ie most politicians) “no doubt whatsoever”. Of course it is not justified – but you will not clear their names arguing on legal technicalities until the political need to hold them to blame eases (don't hold your breath).
Problem is, this has blocked further investigation – if the very existence of any such exercise was covered up, then it is is nigh on impossible to investigate whether there was any wilful intent on the part of the operator(s) on the ground.


I am suggesting that, because the security team on board were opposed to the conditions of the peace process that had been secretly and illegally negotiated by MI6 (not 5) it is possible that they were seen as an obstacle to that process and so it is possible that the suggestion for this exercise originated within the intelligence community – they would have been able to facilitate the cooperation of the American unit based at Mac at the time who had the equipment and training for working with SF helos – further, the operator on the ground was instructed to be out of position. The implications, if this is the case, are so serious for the country that the barrier of the cover up of an exercise must be removed – by being open about any such exercise, it can then be established who put it together and who was responsible on the ground at the Mull.


I have suggested a candidate equipment that could have been trialled/demonstrated that day which, had it been used, would explain all that is known from the available data had it been ½ mile or so up the hill instead of at the LZ.


<<The only answer for both of us surely is to press for a new Accident Investigation>> But no kind of new investigation can start without some credible person having the courage to come forward with a piece of inside information – if ever a whistle blower was needed ,,,. was the equipment on board, was the approach to the LZ planned, who knew of what, ???