Selective Quotations
As I have been "put out to pasture" by the Mull Group I have been very reluctant to enter the debate on this thread for some time, but Cazatou's post at 5720 is such a travesty of the truth and a selective quote from the Odiham Stn Cdr's comments that I feel I should respond. As Cazatou obviously knows all of what the Stn Cdr Odiham said he will acknowledge that in a six paragraph set of comments the first 5 paragraphs both fail to suggest aircrew error, and do not necessarily agree with the BoI's conclusions on the sequence of events. After, I understand, having his comments sent back for "amendment" (perhaps Cazatou could confirm this rumour) the Stn Cdr's full comments on Human Failings were actually:
6. In assessing human failings the evidence is insufficient to be specific. However, there is no indication of a major technical malfunction and Flt Lt Tapper and his crew were undoubtedly competent to carry out the mission. In carrying out that mission Flt Lt Tapper, as captain of an aircraft in peacetime, had an overriding duty to ensure the safety of the aircraft, its crew and. the passengers. While there may, arguably, be some mitigating circumstances, I am regrettably drawn to the conclusion that he failed in that duty.
This is hardly a revelation - we all owe a duty of care to our fellow citizens all the time. It is certainly not a provable conclusion of negligence and more importantly the link to gross negligence which Cazatou supports. There is no doubt that Tapper and Cook owed a "duty of care" to their crew and passengers - there is no proof that they failed to provide it. People's opinions (including the "regretable" conclusion of the Odiham Stn Cdr) based on a subjective judgement and a very selective use of the facts (which did not include any investigation of the airworthiness of the Chinook fleet and the Boscombe Down concerns - an amazing (and directed?) omission by the BoI) are not the required proof of negligence. Worse, where were the 1 Gp and HQSTC staffs' proper assessments of the inadequacies of the BoI on the engineering side - or were they keeping their heads under the parapet by direction as well?
Perhaps Cazatou could also explain why the duty of care he relies on to support the "negligence" of the Chinook pilots went "out of the window" when, with the same Reviewing Officers, it was decided in the case of the September 1994 Tornado accident in Glen Ogle (caused, without any doubt, by the pilot's control inputs) the conclusion should be so different. To quote from what I find to be an amazing comment from the AOC:
“Regardless of the circumstances of this particular accident, I agree that Flt Lt xxxxx should be absolved from blame.”
Even more amazingly in terms of the consistency and fairness of the BoI system the Senior Reviewing Officer's comments include:
“Notwithstanding a thorough investigation and the availability of evidence revealing the precise activities of the crew up to the point of impact, there is no explanation for the final manoeuvre flown by Flt Lt xxxxx.”
On the Chinook though he said:
“Without the irrefutable evidence which is provided by an ADR and a CVR, there is inevitably a degree of speculation as to the precise detail of the sequence of events in the minutes and seconds immediately prior to impact.
Back to Glen Ogle he concludes:
“It is therefore because there is no scope for conjecture… that I find any consideration of human failings to be academic and fruitless. Despite the wealth of detailed evidence, we are confounded and under these particular circumstances I consider it is futile to indulge in hypothesis.”
However on the Chinook he is happy to find Gross Negligence despite admiting that his conclusion is based on hypothesis as confirmed by the comment:
“Why they therefore elected to ignore the safe options open to them and pursue the one imposing the ultimate danger, we shall never know.”
This is why the Chinook verdict (which is unsupportable even with the limited evidence taken by the BoI let alone with any proper investigation to include all the airworthiness and engineering issues) will continue to be questioned as long as people are interested in justice - it is also part of the reason (add Nimrod, Sea King, Hercules, Puma, etc) why, IMHO, the military airworthiness and flight safety systems should be independent of the Command Chain.
JB
Last edited by John Blakeley; 2nd Oct 2009 at 09:04.