CM
I have said the SI went further than most and I, too, think they did a good job. A few howlers and a bit simplistic in places but no serving officer would be expected to know the proper answers to many of the issues.
But,
Had the Panel raised the issues you mention they would be firmly told to wind their necks in.
That is surely the problem. They should feel confident of support at the highest level if they raise, AGAIN, systemic failings. Anyone who tells an SI to wind their necks in for revealing such gross failings on a safety critical equipment should be dismissed immediately. If an SI feels it must criticise those it reports to (e.g. MAA) then it should have an alternative route to submit its report. Reading this report is like reading the MoK one in places. You think, good, excellent, you're getting there.........then, nothing. An abrupt change of direction and the previous section is obviously incomplete, or has been edited by someone. The giveaway is the odd sentence here and there that should also have been deleted for continuity and consistency.
Just my opinion.
Now an irrefutable fact. Failure to notify and take action protects the same old VSOs and their successors. It is why those with oversight should be independent.
Flight Idle
A simple feeler gauge check for gap between the mechanism, bolt, nut etc, is all that is required on the scissor shackle.
It seems to me, first year student stuff, quite obvious to anyone really & no, it's not hindsight, just completely obvious stuff.
Precisely. I said the same thing earlier in the thread. Ist year apprentice stuff. But we don't do apprentices anymore.
I'm still somewhat bemused at the layer upon layer of technical administration, that did not realise such a simple thing.
Simple answer. The SI correctly notes the warning was dated 1991, but it fails to ask the question
as of that date. It only asks the current set up, which didn't exist pre-1999. It was the same on Chinook and others. They asked the IPT, formed in 1999, "In 1993 did you ......" and they said, correctly, No. But they didn't ask anyone who would be expected to know the truth.
If you ask any ATP staff from 1991 why the warning would not get into the APs (I have, it is one phone call, so why not the SI - it would have significantly changed their report and recommendations?) you get a perfectly reasonable explanation. That is, funding was being chopped, posts cut and ATP due to be transferred to Glasgow, but none of the staff with it as they were seeking retirement packages. By 1992 all ATP amendments were stopped by the Chief Engineer's organisation, as part of his rundown of airworthiness. 28% cuts in direct airworthiness funding simply cannot be tolerated year on year without major problems. That is what made this and other accidents inevitable. And it is what the MAA are continuing to hide.
I say again. The chances of Martin Baker not sending this servicing bulletin to MoD are slim to zero. The SI does not claim MoD never got it, only that it cannot be found. (But at the inquest this had become MoD didn't get it, and one must ask when this leap occurred and why). But who did they ask? No-one who would be expected to have it, given the above regime and policies of the day. All MB said in court was "I wasn't there at the time". So why didn't the Coroner demand a witness appear who was there? It is up to the MAA to fill in these gaps. They won't. Therefore it must be someone independent of MoD. I suggest a Law Lord.