JP,
I also say there are so many unanswered questions that the MOD verdict is not justified due to a lack of real EVIDENCE.
You think that coming to a hover in marginal conditions is a safe thing to try? As someone completely unqualified to fly helicopters you wouldn't understand that attempting that could be a very dangerous thing indeed.
Slow down, certainly. It appears that they did. The yachtsman witness said he thought the Chinook he saw was involved in a search due to its low speed.
You appear to accept that there was quite possibly a problem which required them to "sort things out", then? I remind you of the known history of flying control (pallet detaching) problems, in addition to engine control (runaway up) problems. FACT. The accident aircraft also had a previously recorded TANS problem. FACT. There was BOI evidence that it may have had an intercomm failure just before the accident. FACT.
If there WAS sufficient PROOF, instead of hypotheses, to support the gross negligence label, then no problem at all, everyone might have accepted it and got quietly on with their lives and learned a flight safety lesson from the accident. As it was, the only thing RAF crews learned was that if something goes wrong and an accident occurs, resulting in their inability to give evidence, they may well get stitched up with a manslaughter charge by their so-called leaders who perhaps prefer to protect their own positions.
As things stand, I still suspect there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. The MOD has pushed a verdict that piles the blame in a convenient corner. Politically far easier than do that than to accept that major management mistakes were made over the premature introduction into service of the Mk 2 Chinook when it was judged not airworthy by that MOD department actually tasked with bringing it into service?
I for one, will never accept the verdict on the evidence found.
Ex RAF A2 QHI, SH, served my time in NI. Also ex RAF QFI.
Last edited by ShyTorque; 9th Jan 2003 at 23:21.