John Blakely
As someone who had completed the Security Officers Course I was concientious enough not to bring a copy of the BOI to France with me when we moved here. What I have to refresh my memory is what is available through the Internet.
The basis of my viewpoint is quite simple; the BOI stated at para 16e of their report "The weather was suitable for the flight but would have required flight in accordance with IFR in the vicinity of the Mull of Kintyre." In addition the Yachtsman stated that when the Chinook passed him it was at 1-200ft and "travelling towards the mass of orographic cloud obscuring the Mull". He also estimated the visibility at that time as 1NM limited by haze.
The aircraft should therefore -without any doubt whatsover -have been flown at or above Safety Altitude in the vicinity of the Mull of Kintyre and should only have descended to low level again when the Flight Conditions were unequivocably VFR. Failure to comply with this most basic tenet of Airmanship resulted in the loss of the Aircraft, its Passengers and Crew.
PS In respect of your earlier Post; I took it for granted that OC RAF Odiham chose his words with great care - as GFSO and I did when drafting our comments on the BOI. The words he chose could, in our opinion, have only one meaning in the context of the BOI; which was that meaning contained in Chambers dictionary.