Just remind me (in round figures) how many RAF Chinooks HC 2 have been ploughed into the ground since ZD576. A round number - you don't have to be accurate. (Clue - it is a round number)
Completely irrelevant. Read the MoD’s safety regs. Your argument is the same as that used by the RAF suppliers of the day, who held Ch. 5 (maintaining airworthiness) funding. "OK, we have a safety problem, aircrew have been injured, let's wait and see if it happens again before we investigate".
Boscombe Down use TRIALS aircraft for TRIALS. Perhaps you don't see a difference between these and those in service with a limitation on operational tasks.
You clearly don’t understand the concept of the Build Standard or the process which leads from TI to PI to, ultimately, CA Release trials. Or, the scope of what Boscombe does.
The aircraft Boscombe declined to fly in May/June 1994, on airworthiness grounds (as admitted by MoD), MUST have been to a defined build standard stated in the RTS. Otherwise the trials would not be representative. Any minor differences would be recorded and assessed for impact – and there would inevitably be such differences given the fleet was being converted from Mk1s. (Contrary to MoD’s assertion. It wasn’t you who advised Ingram ZD576 was a new build was it?). At the time, the PE Fleet was just another aircraft category, along with FAE, TAE, IR6 et al. That is, the RAF were given funding specifically to maintain them at the in use build standard.
Maintaining the Build Standard is crucial to managing such differences, which is why it is mandated. When you briefed Ministers did you advise them this mandated requirement had been ignored, thus rendering any Safety Case or Argument invalid?
Crucially, you completely miss the point that on the day of the crash Boscombe still regarded safety critical software to be in the development phase. How did you explain this extraordinary state of affairs when you briefed Ministers? How did you explain how a development aircraft came to be tasked to carry VVIPs? (Despite the stated concerns of the aircrew, who asked for a Mk1).
Go read the Civil Service Code carefully.
Impartiality. Say no more.