Where was the negligence?
Walter,
You raise a very important point and although I cannot comment on what the Ops staff would or would not have done with the tasking request, I believe the general answer is the same as it is for all the other issues that were missed by a flawed and inadequate investigation, that neither the BoI nor the Reviewing Officers properly covered – either because they didn’t know (and didn’t want to know given the starting assumption of pilot error) or the BoI decided not to investigate them because, by the BOI’s own words: “ Nevertheless, there was sufficient evidence to eliminate as possible causes: major technical malfunction or structural failure of the aircraft prior to impact; …… Therefore the Inquiry focused on the crew’s handling and operation of the aircraft.”
As we now know there was plenty of evidence which they did have questioning the airworthiness and serviceability of the aircraft had they looked for it and properly analysed it, and there was a great deal more evidence that may have been withheld from them, and because they had already made their minds up they did not bother to” lift some of the stones”, eg on basic questions such as the BD position and what the RAF operating and RTS authority (DD/Mar & Hels) had done to safeguard the safety of Chinook Mk2 operations after the vital 25 May meeting where ZD 576 itself was the subject of one of 4 in-service incidents of 15 which were considered by BD to have serious implications (not flight test incidents as the Minister incorrectly told Parliament) that led to the BD “grounding” decision.
You properly raise the issue of why Tapper’s request for a Mk1 (which had been in NI until just a few days before) was not agreed – clearly the operators at Odiham would have known all the issues relating to the RTS and the incidents that had already taken place. Presumably they also knew what was happening at BD – and if they didn’t DD/ Mar & Hels (who was represented at the 25 May meeting) in Main Building should certainly have told them. They clearly did not think of the issues of the suitability of the Chinook Mk2 for this non-essential “passenger” flight (but Tapper did – which is why he asked to keep the Mk1 – in my view a truly telling point that the BoI failed properly to grasp). The issue was, I suggest, much wider though - why did S Eng O 7 Sqn and even OC Eng Wg at Odiham select ZD 576 for this mission? Nobody asked them. Certainly S Eng O 7 Sqn would have known the recent history of ZD 576 including the control restriction just days before that had led to him issuing an “every flight” inspection – he would also have know that they had replaced the engine from ZD 576’s incident on 19 May with a “no fault found” engine from ZA 704’s incident on 8 March – the first of the 4 BD felt had the “serious implications”. Did they even think these issues through? If not was their decision making negligent?
This failure to provide “transparency” continued after the BoI – for example, DHP the main action addressee of the BD letter of 6 June (issued after the 25 May meeting), did not, as far as I can see, mention its existence to even the MoD legal team for the Sherriff’s FAI – I cannot believe he had forgotten it, but IHMO perhaps the need to provide it to the “other side” with all the questions that it might have raised on the safety of the verdict, was a consideration – especially as it had not been provided to the BoI either! As far as I can see, although the BD position was investigated by the HofL Select Committee they did not see the 6 June letter either, but perhaps I have missed this.
The bottom line for me as a simple, basic flying trained, engineer is the question the BoI failed to answer – namely why, if they wanted to climb over the Mull (against all of their flight planning and certainly against, as far as the crew knew, the RTS limitations), did they change waypoints and then fail to change course? Every pilot I have spoken to, and indeed MoD in a letter to Lord Jacobs, accepts that having changed the waypoint they would have expected a course change to follow immediately – instead of which the BoI suggests (against the views of the Odiham Stn Cdr before his comments were “brought into line” and against all their training and experience as well as common sense) that they deliberately flew towards the Mull and then selected an inappropriate ROC. If they did the Gross Negligence verdict would be justified. But nobody knows, and the BoI came nowhere near fully investigating this accident and its potential underlying causes - so in my view, and that of many more eminent and better qualified people than me, it isn’t! That remains the “bottom line” of this thread.
JB