Where does it say negligence?
Caz,
I see that like JP you have reverted to going over old ground - is this the new policy for "defending the indefensible"? As you well know the published remarks of the Stn Cdr Odiham in the BoI do not contain the word negligence at any point, and even his final "reluctant" conclusion on the "failure" of the pilots to ensure the safety of their passengers leaves open the question of why that failure might have occurred (and of course we now know more than he would have done then as to the real airworthiness and fitness for purpose issues of the time, and that they were not just "mitigating circumstances"). What the comments do show is a massive "disconnect" between the first 4 paragraphs, which basically "throw out" many of the BoI's conclusions, and the last two paragraphs, and you would need to be a member of the RAF's equivalent of the "Flat Earth Society" not to notice both this and the Stn Cdr's very carefully chosen words to conform to what in my opinion had by then clearly become a policy decision to find the pilots "guilty". Do you remember the AOCinC's memo of 15 Feb 1995 requiring the allocation of blame? The Stn Cdr's comments are dated 3 March 1995, which seems a bit late for all the staffing needed for the AOCinC to be able to publish his remarks by 3 April 1995 if this was the first time round don't you think?
Indeed, I have heard it suggested that the Stn Cdr Odiham was "invited" to re-consider his original remarks - if you saw the original comments when they came to 1Gp for BoI staffing you can, no doubt, confirm whether this was the case. If it was perhaps you could also enlighten this forum as to what the first version said.
JB