The BoI and Airworthiness
Dervish,
Can I add a bit of background to Tucumseh's response to your post earlier today. You say that the BoI report raised airworthiness issues and that is true - but they did not raise them in their own minds - they left unused evidence and unanswered questions that certainly raised airworthiness as an issue in the minds of others such as myself. A word search of the BoI and Reviewing Officers' comments will not give you one "hit" on the word "airworthiness".
In October 2002, at Michael Tapper's request, I did a full analysis of the airworthiness and engineering aspects of the BoI which was placed on the campaign website at the time -http://chinook-justice.org/ - it seems to have been deleted but I will be happy to send you a copy if you are interested - please PM me with the address I can send them to. At the same time a single page "Airworthiness" summary was written and both the full report and the summary were given to MoD - by C4 News and Lord Chalfont if I remember correctly. Both were dimissed by MoD as "no new evidence" even though they started from the premise of "unused" evidence, and made no claims to have "new" evidence. Since then of course we have seen many further documents such as the BD letters and the CHART report which appear to have "by-passed" the BoI, and real airworthiness experts such as Tucumseh have taken up the cause - not least because we can now see how long-dated and systemic the failures had become, and we can see how many further lives have been lost as a result of airworthiness and the related "fitness for purpose" issues.
As you point out in your last paragraph an aircraft being unairworthy does not necessarily cause it to crash, and I am not aware that any of the airworthiness campaigners have ever gone down the road of speculation that this was the cause (unlike the speculation that leads to the Gross Negligence verdict). What the airworthiness issues do though is to further reinforce the doubts - doubts that should anyway never have allowed such a verdict to be seen as fair and just even under the RAF's own rules. The reversing of this verdict and the clearing of the pilots' names remains my own priority, and I believe is the priority for all the "airworthiness" campaigners in what is now though a much wider area for concern.
The irony of course is that as a result of this verdict MoD and the RAF have dug an even bigger hole for themselves, and they continue to do so as we have learnt more about both the introduction to service of the Mk2 and the widespread "airworthiness" malaise which has existed for so long - culminating in the loss of Nimrod XV230, and leading to Haddon-Cave's Inquiry, the formation of the MAA and even, I would argue, the "loss" of the MRA4s. About as spectacular an "own goal" as would have been possible, and a tragedy for all those families who have lost loved ones as a direct result of these failings - this is where I suggest some quite justified considerations of gross negligence would be more appropriate!
JB