Your 7339
Walter,
I quite agree that Flt Lt Tapper would not have placed much reliance in a STANS he had little faith in. That is probably why Mr Cable found it switched off. As we have discussed before, that could not have happened on impact. It almost certainly was switched off deliberately by one of the crew.
If JT had little faith in STANS, why on earth would he place any at all in a piece of equipment which was recently fitted, he had probably never used before, and had no release to service.
Portable DME, Intrinsically reliable?
Are you stating fact or is that a wild stab in the dark?
The DME receiver element of the old X Channel TACANS in the 130K was notoriously unreliable. In the early 90's it generated many serious incidents.
One aircraft in Bardufoss Fjord broke cloud with the mountain in front, on a LLZR/DME approach.
After that we had one of the bad TACANS replaced with a more modern X/Y Channel receiver. It was far more reliable, but still generated the odd incident.