The Missing Link
Many of you have focused on the chain of responsibility for airworthiness of the a/c but so little has been discussed about who actually put the sortie together.
Flt Lt Tapper must have had fair warning to have had the time to request a Mk1 Chinook for it.
Someone on this thread some time back let it slip that it was the intention to use a Chinook some weeks prior to the fateful day.
The idea that a piece of paper just landed on an Ops room desk and the task was dished out on an ad hoc basis just doesn't ring true for what would surely have been an important task to get all of the team safely and timely to their meeting – someone higher up than the SH detachment commander would surely have been watchful of preparations and perhaps have been very specific about how it was to be done.
Who was this?
Who initiated the task? - whose name was on the warning order?
Were they at any of the inquiries?