DozyWannabe,
Could you please name the family links to the Privy Council???
You obviously are so convinced of the invicinbility of Mahon and Vette you do not read and digest fact.
Your comment re communications is wrong, they never at any time lost communication, but it was all via HF, no VHF.
You were invited by a previous poster, henry crun, from memory, to give your version of how a tower, or radar controller would 'Invite" a descent to 500ft. You have not supplied an answer yet. Regardless of Company SOP's it was a CAA mandatory requirement that no flight below 6,000ft was permitted. The fact that a senior Check and Training captain carried out such a descent at the invitation of a controller, and made it public that he had done so, certainly made a rod for the back of later crews, especially when the weather was not SKC and unlimited visibility.
You have not as yet described how the transponder could possibly be working when it was physically impossible for radar to get any returns when the descent was carried out as it was, and there is no dispute on the reported track of this descent. They got a return for a min or two, no more.
Last edited by prospector; 7th Dec 2011 at 22:05.