Chugalug2:
An obvious solution to your dilemma, as well as that of "you and others", is that the "trying to ensure that these in-service aircraft are safe" be removed from the MOD entirely to a separate and independent Military Aviation Authority, as well as to a separate and independent Military Air Accident Investigation Board
Perhaps inadvertently wrongly expressed but this is definitely not the answer. The MAA is a regulator and the very last thing you want is to remove responsibility for safety away from the operator to the regulator. See Cullen, Robens, reports, etc. for how previous safety cultures involved a lack of responsibility for safety on the part of operators because they believed their (only) safety responsibility was to satisfy the regulator, standards, etc. Regulators obviously bear some responsibility for safety but primary responsibility must reside with operators.
Leon Jabachjabicz:
All this took place over the space of 10 years and so the NART report from 1998 could quite easily be lost. Don't forget that 10 years ago intranet sites were just coming in and I believe that the 1998 NART report would either be paper-only or even worse on CD ROM.
[...]
The fact that the RAF can't find a copy doesn't surprise me. A copy might turn up, but don't hold your breath. I don't believe there is any conspiracy theory at play here or with Chinook.
Maybe no conspiracy theory but (like BigGreenGilbert), I think LJ goes too easy on MoD. The NART is a vital document and losing it is not acceptable.
FWIW, over the last decade, there have been a handful of times when various bits of MoD that I have written reports for have had to ask me for a copy because they can't find it. My suspicion is that individuals within MoD know where to look for things but as soon as they move out (did someone else say that high turnover in MoD was a problem!), the knowledge is lost to organisations. Even less excusable now when everything should be electronically stored and searchable (and I see no reason why the 1998 NART shouldn't be available electronically in a centralized database of Nimrod documentation).