Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[walter kennedy]

REFRESHER
The weather conditions of the day were typical and would not have hidden the presence of the landmass but would have obscured/blurred detail (what little there is there) and made visual judgement of range to it very difficult.


The STANS had been in GPS mode such that the CDU would have been displaying data for just that system.
If one uses for analysis just GPS data for the flight from Aldergrove to the position of waypoint change, you get a straight track sticking right on 027 mag (at the time) – with no other nav aids available at their altitude and a 20 mile sea crossing with a landmass ahead bereft of identifiable aiming points and with a cross wind component they simply had to have been using STANS to have kept so closely on track.
So the switch position being found “off” does not mean that it was off during the flight because it obviously was on.
The selection of waypoint B should be considered along with Flt Lt Tapper's course selector (on his Horizontal Situation Indicator) being on 028 – this surely showed intent to continue the flight (after the business at the Mull) by heading out to sea and joining the 028-B track along the shores Islay/Jura (an obvious straight safe run) – and therefore there was no intention to switch off the TANS (by the crew at least).
But those of you familiar with the kit would probably think it unlikely in the extreme that such a toggle switch could have been bounced “off” - especially when the nature of the impact saved so much of the instrumentation. But it was off before smoke had time to deposit the soot (that had AAIB deducing it to have been off at impact) – but the ground fire did not engulf the cockpit area – and so there was an opportunity for some kind hearted soul with a little knowledge to turn off the nav computer perhaps hoping to save us the agony of analysis – pity about the back-up battery, eh?.


Up until the position of waypoint change, use of GPS for area nav would not have broken any rules as they would have been flying eyes out for safety – just using GPS as a guide.
However, Flt Lt Tapper in particular would not have relied upon it to any degree of accuracy and would not have been expected to have relied upon it for giving range off the Mull shoreline as close in as waypoint change with those conditions ahead without some other reference and he would probably not have been alarmed at a significant discrepancy between TANS and some other local reference that may have been available.
I suggest that he had some other local reference that he trusted more than TANS to have changed the waypoint at that time – effectively discarding TANS for position relative to the nearby landmass – they were already too close in for safety to have been just turning nearby – they must have had an intention to approach a specific point (I have presented the argument for this in detail in past posts).


I believe that they were intending to swing around the light house at speed, the line up being facilitated by someone with a PRC112 at the HLS at waypoint A – this diagram may help:




I believe that the person with the PRC112 was wilfully out of position, that this crash was contrived. The security personnel on board were perceived as an obstacle to the peace process and so these good people were bundled onto one aircraft – against all common sense and with two Sea Kings already available for the task – which just happened to crash into an isolated low hill. The official story has been rubbish (remember the “inappropriate rate of climb” nonsense?) - pilot error beyond any doubt whatsoever! – and you lot have let them get away with it for 16 years.