Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[walter kennedy]

Caz
re your recent post 7015, I think some added comment on duty hours is needed.
I sat in on the FAI when the OC Aldergrove was being questioned – from memory now for a quick reply, these are my recollections and impressions of what was said:
The limit on duty hours applied only to duty within the operational theatre, it being a consideration of the additional stress that the crews may be under in that environment – logically, a ferry flight leaving the theatre would surely have been viewed on its merits with particular regard to the crews condition to undertake any such flight;
had the in-theatre limit applied, there would have been an obligation to have consulted the OC and he said that he had not been – indeed, he had never previously been asked for such an extension, meaning that the orders had either been ignored (unlikely?) or that the situation had never arisen that a decision to extend duty was required, beyond the scope of of operational assignments that were within the Duty Exec's ability to resolve;
there was an in-depth discussion between the Exec and Flt Lt Tapper in which it seems the argument was won for Tapper's crew to do the sortie on the basis for their having prepared extensively for this sortie (a simple ferry flight?).
This bit is interesting:
<<In his evidence to the HOL Committee the Duty Exec stated that he counselled Flt Lt Tapper that it would not be acceptable for Tapper to call in from somewhere in Scotland seeking permission to nightstop out of Theatre.>>
I seem to recall that ZD576, this most valuable asset, was not scheduled for any activity in-theatre for the most part of the next day – so perhaps there was more known at the higher levels of authority regarding the planning for this sortie than has been revealed in any of the inquiries so far. It seems that there would have been the anticipation of a possible overnight stop – common sense would have it that regardless of any strict limits on duty hours, to have returned that night would have been pushing the crew too hard – let's hope that the lack of tasking for the next day and the undetermined plans for the return were not just because the higher levels of authority had not expected their return to be an issue ...


Hope this completes the picture – I suggest that the crew were not being cavalier regarding their duty time but that they were prepared for this sortie and that perhaps they had been tasked to fit in their excursion to the Mull (it made no sense to have gone there as part of a ferry flight in those conditions) – the geometry of the planned tracks would not have affected fuel calculations nor schedule whether they had gone Curran to Corran or Mull then going back to 028 to Corran (as I have shown previously). One thing that “touching base” at the Mull would have achieved in terms of their duty hours is that the operational theatre limit would not have been exceeded by the time that they got there and so the rest of the flight was outside theatre and therefore the rules would not have applied anyway and so the Exec could have OK'd the flight without referring it to the OC Aldergrove – they could not have got their feet dry in time outside theatre by going any other route (eg Curran to Corran).