Herewith the summary for today. Thanks to Pprune Radar for making a personal appearance in sunny Helensburgh. Ted Tilly was in attendance representing GATCO.
SUMMARY FOR TUESDAY 11 FEB 03
This was, all in all, a pretty dramatic day.
The morning started with the Prosecution completing cross-examination of the first eye witness without eliciting any significant contradiction from his original examination by Defence.
The second eye witness (a retired teacher and very experienced hill walker) was most convincing. He knew exactly where he was when he saw two aircraft approaching him and his companion from the south. They were standing at a spot height of 756m (approx 2300ft). He could see two aircraft in very close formation and that they were twin tailed. He mentioned to his companion that the aircraft were not Tornados as he was very familiar with them in his hill walking experience.
The aircraft started to bank before reaching him and flew belly towards him at an estimated range of 40 yards!! The aircraft were flying beneath cloud and were last seen banking steeply flying in a westerly direction close to the time the aircraft were last seen on radar.
In cross examination the eye witness remained adamant on his assessment of his position and height and that the aircraft were twin tailed and definitely not Tornados.
The third witness was part of the walking group of Witness 1. He verified the information of Witness 1, that the aircraft were seen to the north of him and travelling east to west in close formation.
The fourth eye witness was lady walking with the second eye witness. She was not an experienced map reader but saw the aircraft and knew they were not Tornados because Tornados regularly flew in the area where she lived and she noticed these aircraft had a double tail. Her companion also stated that the aircraft were not Tornados at the very time of sighting them. On cross examination she was adamant that the aircraft had a double tail and were not Tornados. They passed 100 ft above her head banking towards a gap in the hills. They were flying beneath cloud.
An expert witness, Craig Penrice (test pilot) was then called. He is currently working for BAe Systems, Warton. He has a total of 4,200 hrs including Lightning (750 hrs), Hawk (1800 hrs), F15 (550 hrs), Tornado + Eurofighter. He has very extensive low level experience including Farnborough Display Pilot in Eurofighter down to 500 ft a.g.l. He has been a Qualified Flying Instructor (QFI), Qualified Weapons Instructor (QWI), Instrument Rating Examiner (IRE) and USAF Instructor Pilot. He is also a graduate of the US Navy Test Pilot School. Craig has flown all variants of the F15 interceptor and was a qualified 4-ship leader on this aircraft.
Mike Jones QC started his examination by asking Craig for his views on the pre-flight mission planning and briefing of Bite 21. Various items of documentary evidence were already in court as exhibits.
He stated that the weather information available to the pilots would assist the crews in validating that the mission was viable and that they would have a complete weather picture before setting off. From the information LFA 14 looked good to excellent visibility, scattered cloud base greater that 2500 ft and the possibility of cloud on the hills in places with the possibility of scattered snow showers.
He stated that on such a mission, pilots would not simply climb to their Abort Altitude if encountering cloud as they would want to achieve their mission objectives. In this case, a low level navigation exercise and low level intercept training. He also stated that pilots viewed low level abort as more perilous than other options available which would probably have been enunciated in the brief. Such other options might include:
1. Circumvent bad weather.
2. Return to an area of known good weather.
3. Conduct their exercise in an area other that originally planned.
Craig was still being examined by Mike Jones when the court closed for the day.
IMPORTANT REVELATIONS Mike Jones QC for the defence elicited that none of the eyewitnesses had ever been interviewed by the RAF, USAF or any aircraft accident investigator. They had all made statements to the Grampian Police. All authorities were aware of the existence of such statements. We know that Major Chamberlain saw at least one of these statements but did not follow it up in his role as USAF aircraft investigator.
We also know that the RAF Board of Inquiry also knew of the existence of the statements and chose not to pursue the evidence through interview.
Furthermore, we know that the USAF accident investigation was still not complete after two years or its findings were left open.
We can draw over our own conclusions as to why all these authorities chose this course of action. However, I am sure readers of this forum will draw their own conclusions and make the appropriate comments. Personally, I smell some very large rodents!!!
That’s it for today.
Dick Doleman, Brian Young
Last edited by DICK DOLEMAN; 12th Feb 2003 at 20:21.