DV
Strange they can’t find the report. It would be necessary before one could issue an update of the Safety Case, which MoD claims was done; both for the original Special Trials Fit 189 and the subsequent DA Mods 2228 and 7246. Why, then, having (allegedly) complied with the requirement to do all this work, would one destroy the report – which the regulations require to be retained to support the Safety Case? The RTSA is required to have a contractual vehicle to access this information at any time. Did the RTSA reply, or the Tornado office?
The aircraft office may have got rid of it (after all, they were advised to check failure warning integration in 1998/9 and didn’t, which is pretty damning), but I doubt if Boscombe did – especially if they reported a problem. And the Aircraft DA, charged with doing the actual safety case work, would be both contracted and obliged to retain it.
Something stinks. In my opinion, post-crash the penny dropped that they (some combination of MoD, QQ and BAeS) had screwed up and the usual cull of incriminating evidence ensued. And it is routine for BoIs to be kept in the dark over such events.