DOUBLE BOGEY
Flying Lawyer - I may be mistaken but the lighthouse staff reported the lighthouse in fog???
You are mistaken.
Further, the Pulford Board concluded that nobody was in a position to give a precise description of the cloud situation over the south end of the Mull at the time of the accident, and they did not attempt to do so.
The yachtsman saw the aircraft estimated at 200-400 feet
Estimates of aircraft heights by non-aviators are notoriously unreliable. (Estimates by aviators are also often inaccurate but, generally, not as far out as those of non-aviators.)
Post-accident examination of the SuperTANS revealed that it was at 468 feet above sea level +/- 50' a few seconds after the waypoint change/about 15-18 seconds prior to impact.
The aircraft struck a rocky outcrop on the side of Beinn na Lice, approximately 0.28 nm east of the lighthouse, at 810 feet amsl.
The forecast mentioned possible DVS at the mainland coast.
There was a forecast 30% risk of conditions below VFR limits around the Mull of Kintyre.
The captain planned the sortie as a VFR flight at low level on the way out and at medium level on the return to RAF Aldergrove. The decision to fly a low level VFR sortie was consistent with the weather forecast provided by the Belfast International Airport Met Office for the area around RAF Machrihanish (some 17 km to the north of the lighthouse) and operationally acceptable but required contingency options to avoid any bad weather.
The only Unserviceability found by the investigation was a possible malfunction of the RADALT.
80% of the fuselage was damaged by fire but only 20% destroyed
The helicopter continued almost 200m from the initial impact point before impacting the ground while inverted. It manoeuvred violently while being struck by the rotor blades, breaking into two with substantial parts breaking off during the crash. Fuel tanks on both sides were ruptured at initial impact resulting in extensive ground fire which severely damaged much of the wreckage.
Tony Cable (Senior Inspector of Air Accidents - Engineering) with 18 years experience as a crash investigator told the House of Lords Select Committee and the Review that: “... throughout this investigation the evidence was remarkably thin, from my point of view, I must say. We spent a great deal of time trying to find evidence.”
He could not dismiss the possibility that a malfunction had occurred but had left no evidence in the wreckage.
NB: Absence of evidence is very different from evidence of absence.
You ask the campaigners:
Why ….. did you feel the need to spend 17 years trying to prove the crew were not to blame. How do you know? Enlighten me so I can begin to understand the seemingly irrational response to this accident! What do you know that is not in the report?
jayteeto has already explained this to you.
It's all in the report of the independent Review. You would have seen it for yourself if you'd read it
with an open mind.
It took a very long time but the campaigners were eventually vindicated by the independent Review.
The campaign might not have been necessary if the senior Reviewing Officers had accepted the findings of the Board presided over by Andy Pulford.
Why do you regard it as an 'irrational response" to try to achieve justice for deceased colleagues?
