CHART and NART
Five years after the CHART report was published in 1992, in which many of the recommendations relate to the "integrity of the overall airworthiness management system" a similar review was carried out for the Nimrod aircraft. This airworthiness review (NART) was only undertaken, after the departure of ACM Alcock as Chief Engineer (RAF) and ACM Squires as ACAS. The NART report suggests that there was “neglect” during the 90’s culminating in low manning levels, declining experience, failing moral, overstretched tasking and reduced resources. The report calls for “highly attentive management” which needs to be “closely attuned”; clearly airworthiness ingredients that had been missing for several years. This period also saw a marked decline in airworthiness spending.
How then, was it possible for Haddon-Cave to state in paragraph 13.124 of his report that this was the “golden period” for airworthiness and that was “due in no small measure to the high calibre and leadership to those who held the post [CE]”? Haddon-Cave conveniently uses 1998 as the starting point for his detailed airworthiness analysis and attributes blame to those who followed, when in fact the true starting point for the airworthiness “meltdown” started some eight years earlier. Of course using the 1990 starting point brings up a different batch of names and guilty parties; so instead of Cowan and Pledger, one has to read Alcock and Squires. The question that needs to be answered is, was Haddon-Cave encouraged to adopt the 1998 start point, or did he simply get too engrossed in 136 pages of a safety case and missed the bigger picture?
DV