Arthur Rowe:
The original findings of the Board of Inquiry should have been accepted by the reviewing officers.
I see no reason why the original findings of the Board of Inquiry should be accepted by anyone, least of all by the Reviewing Officers whose creature (as with all BoI's) it was. Therein lies the real dilemma. If the BoI is briefed to act freely and purposefully, and to truly endeavour to discover the causes of an aircraft accident, then they may possibly be discovered. Given any pressure or dissembling to prevent that and they will not. There is abundant evidence that both happened in this case and no doubt in other BoI's as well. This is a dysfunctional system as is that of expecting an aircraft operator to be its own regulator. It seems that both regulation and investigation ceased to function as they were supposed to shortly after the end of the Cold War, no doubt casualties of the "Peace Dividend". If there be no other positive outcome to the ensuing tragedies that followed than the recognition of the urgent need to separate both from the MOD and to implement the necessary reform to do so then the many lives lost would not have been entirely in vain. Airworthiness Regulation and Air Accident Investigation should be as independent of the MOD as it is of BA.
Self Regulation never works, and in Aviation it Kills!