Rigga
the whole point of the H-C Review?
The Review arose from two statements made by ACM Sir Clive Loader in the XV230 BoI report;(a)“I conclude that the loss of XV230 and, far more importantly, of the 14 Service personnel who were aboard, resulted in shortcomings in the application of the processes for assuring airworthiness and safe operation of the Nimrod”
(b)“I am clear that further activity must be undertaken for our other aircraft types to check whether any read-across of lessons we have learned from this accident at such enormous (and immensely sad) cost”.
Mr Haddon-Cave’s remit was;
- ·To examine the arrangements for assuring the airworthiness and safe operation of the Nimrod MR2 in the period from its introduction in 1979 to the accident on 2 September 2006, including hazard analysis, the safety case compiled in 2005, maintenance arrangements, and responses to any earlier incidents which might have highlighted the risk and led to corrective action;
- ·To assess where responsibility lies for any failures and what lessons are to be learned;
- ·To assess more broadly the process for compiling safety cases, taking account of best practice in the civilian and military world;
- ·And to make recommendations to the Secretary of State as soon as practicable, if necessary by way of interim report.
I think people will agree he was pretty thorough in the period 1999 to 2006, although missing a few important engineering points outlined by DV.
He got part of the bigger picture just about right – as it applied to the Nimrod Safety Case. But, what happened to the period 1979-1999? He pointedly baselined most of the report at the SDR which, given the evidence presented to him of deliberate dilution of safety in previous years, can only have been an attempt at damage limitation. Who made this baselining decision? It completely ignores the remit.
For example, he criticises General Cowan for introducing a 20% cut over a 5 year period from about 1998, across all support domains, yet fails to mentions 28% each year for 3 years in the early 90s, which DIRECTLY targeted JSP553 Chapter 5 (maintaining airworthiness). Why not mention this single most important factor in the run down of aviation Safety Management in the last 20 years? It falls squarely in the middle of his timeframe remit, and occurred at just the time when extra funding was required as Safety Cases were being mandated.
What General Cowan did was nothing compared to this, and I doubt if any of the 3 IPT staff even knew this was the root cause of them not having sufficient funding to implement JSP553; so were in no position to defend themselves. (The fact they allegedly acted incompetently is another issue).
Perhaps I’m too cynical, but the 2 Star (AVM) who oversaw this is the same man who threatened staffs with the sack for complaining about the effect of the policy - an attitide that remained throughout the 90s and beyond.
General Cowan certainly didn’t do this – in fact, in my experience he understood precisely where money should be spent and believe the thrust of his 20% was to reduce inefficiencies so freeing up funding for more important things, like functional safety. I only spoke to him once, but this was the general subject under discussion. I know 4% a year sounds a lot, but at the time he had dual-accountable IPTs (who were in DPA but spending some of "his" DLO money) and was newly exposed to how efficiently some projects were run, compared to others who were following management guidlelines. It is the age old question - why are some projects run with effortless competence, yet other far less complex ones are disasters? The potential for true savings (which don't impact time, performance or OC) is obvious and, given the odium he will face, it takes a brave man to set higher benchmarks.
And so on. H-C's remit is applied very narrowly and ACM Loader’s second statement is simply not addressed. In fact, Ainsworth betrayed the fact he had prior notice by immediately making a statement that no other aircraft were affected. The report doesn’t say this; it just doesn’t address it properly, so Ainsworth’s view is based on an omission, not a positive, factual based statement. So, that 2nd recommendation is still outstanding. Who is addressing it?
But, at the end of the day, this is the biggest reaming MoD has had since the Chinook Mk3 inquiry said of precisely the same people – “failure of management oversight”. And there’s the rub. It’s the same names who crop up time and time again in all these cases, yet none are mentioned. The protected species – until Air Cdre Baber has his say in court!