Olive Oil
While we are on the crew subject, would anyone who worked with them on the unit care to confirm the level of co-operation between the pilots involved? In other words, did they get on, were they mates, or was their relationship in the cockpit "difficult"?
Interesting question (why do you ask...)
The real answer is simple. Since the RAF
CHOSE not to fit a cockpit voice recorder, (despite a recommendation 8yrs earlier, after another largely unexplained chinook fatal accident!) how can we possibly know what their interaction was like on this particular flight...
That would simply be speculation wouldn't it...
what are we to do... Make assumptions... Would that be helpful...
But then the RAF
already expect 'the boys' to bear the responsibility for the decision
not to fit that equipment! So let's not cast aspersions eh!
Edited to add: Of course the same, previous BoI also recommended the fitment of DATA recorders. Which would have allowed us to
KNOW exactly how this machine (utterly inadequate at that time!) performed in those vital seconds. The RAF
CHOSE to deny Tapper and Cook
that 'testimony' too, simply replacing 'fact' with 'convenient assumptions'! But in their final determination made absolutely no allowance for
that omission either!
(Though to be fair, Wg Cdr Pulford and his two colleagues
did, clearly stating it had been impossible to recreate the sequence of events leading up to the accident!)
Not long now. Let right be done.