Hoverstop
A little anecdote for you:
Some time ago I was a Loan Service pilot on single Hueys in a very pleasant desert land. One particular day my task was a simple one - Air Experience Flying for a bunch of recruits at the Artillery training school. My brief from their instructors may sound familiar - a couple of Stage 1 lifts to get the youngsters used to the idea of working with a helicopter, then a "tactical" insert at the standard operating altitude (we had 50 feet and below, everything above that belonged to the Hunters/Jags). Lots of wingo-wango, big grins from all in the back - everyone happy.
Next morning that same a/c went up to a high jebel site (6300 ft amsl) for a USL task. As the (very experienced, non-RAF) pilot brought the a/c to a hover over the first load, the tail rotor control linkage broke presenting him with the equivalent of 150+% max left boot. He chopped the throttle and EOL'd next to the load - no damage to self, heli or hookers. BZ to him; a/c duly repaired and returned to service.
However, it set me thinking. What if that linkage had failed 1 hour 20 mins previously, when I'd been down at 50 feet with 30 deg bank and 14 youngsters down the back? How hard would the investigators have looked for evidence of pre-crash mechanical failure? Or would it all have been put down to over-exuberance from someone with a documented history as a training risk? I suspect I know what most crewroom BoIs would have concluded, especially as there was no CVR, HUMS or ADR to help clarify things.
I learned 2 main lessons from this incident:
****ty things happen at the worst of times - there's always a way to achieve the task with the minimum of unnecessary risk exposure.
What might seem the obvious cause of a mishap may not always be the actual cause.
Move on 11 years to 1994, and the tragic deaths of John, Rick, Graham, Kev and their passengers. You say that the crewroom discussions you've participated in suggest that the pilots f***ed up. I say they might have done. However, I also say - as do many learned, articulate contributors to this website, to the various legal processes and latterly to the House of Lords debates - that whatever evidence exists does not satisfy the exacting conditions of proof demanded by the rules that existed in the Royal Air Force at the time of the crash. Not only do I carry this conviction based upon the weight of evidence presented, but I also feel it deeply based on my own personal experience as described above. The Air Marshals' analysis of the outcome may sound exhaustive/convincing to people who wish to believe what they say, but anyone with an open mind may find the conclusions reached by the Sherriff, the House of Lords and others to be more compelling.
Welcome to the wonderful world of PPRuNe posting, and to the debate. Please don't subscribe to the tabloid-trial "no smoke without fire" school of second-guessing when it comes to this question; the reputations of 2 erstwhile brother-officers deserve much more than that. Apply the same standard of proof as was required when the investigation was first carried out, and see if you can still honestly agree with Day and Wratten afterwards. You're not looking for the most likely cause (and having worked with and known the crew reasonably well, I suspect we might even disagree on that...), but absolute proof of negligence.
Written in the wee small hours of a hectic night shift, so there are bound to be grammatical/speeling errors. I'll let the ISS-qual types pick over those...