This 15-year enigma
Malcolm Rifkind's objective comments on BBC today have set me wondering again.
I am a long retired PPL with UK IR and over 1000hrs and long retired LAE as well. I know nothing about helos and still have much to learn about flying, and this tragedy has puzzled me for years.
I have known the area since boyhood and used to transit it often en route to Glenforsa/Mull. Given its mini-climate and frequent low cloud/mist between Antrim and Kintyre I used to transit at safety altitude and let down on the Macrihanish VOR. (From memory it had TACAN in those days not DME). From there one could eyeball the coast north to Mull, or sometimes not ... the West Scottish coast is unpredictable and unforgiving.
In my time the MAC VOR could not be relied on below about 2000ft when south of Kintyre, because of the large chunk of rock between me and the station.
Perhaps the Chinook had some other nav equipment, if so it does not appear to have worked. Perhaps they were practising for low-level special ops, fair enough but why do so with a full load of personnel?
(1) I wonder why a pilot still less two pilots should be at low level, flying straight at said chunk of rock in typical Kintyre IMC?
(2) I wonder what would happen to a senior civil airworthiness official who overrode the recommendations of engineers and a test pilot and decreed that a civil machine was safe when they said it was not?