Why is that, because its not as if he tried to hide his position and it was re-stated not all that long ago...
The link is via here from 2010...
Comparing the effects of the snow on attempts to travel to work - Telegraph
Chinook crash revisited
SIR – The current chief of the air staff has made his views clear (Letters, January 6) following your leading article on the Chinook crash (January 5). That successive CASs have reached the same conclusion after independent and exhaustive reviews, as have ministers, civil servants and senior military aircrew, can hardly be called stubborn; “consistent” might be a more balanced term.
You suggest we may be “trying to hide something”. Could something have been hidden for all these years when leaks from Government departments are a daily occurrence?
As for the so-called new evidence reported by the BBC, in comprehensive responses to reports and submissions by a House of Lords committee, the House of Commons defence committee and Mull of Kintyre campaigners, the RAF – through the MoD – has explained precisely why the finding of gross negligence was unavoidable. It remains so and can only be set aside if the facts are ignored.
Documents dated July 2002 and December 2008 address all issues raised in the campaigners’ various endeavours (including, of course, the Fadec computer system), and painstakingly explain why they are all irrelevant. In a nutshell, had the pilots not knowingly contravened the strict regulations that govern flight at low level, they could not possibly have crashed on the Mull of Kintyre as they did.
This conclusion stems from evidence which is absolutely clear to the open-minded. One can hardly imagine such doughty politicians as George Robertson and John Reid, just two examples, having the wool pulled over their eyes.
Why would the Royal Air Force wish to blame itself for this accident if there was the slightest possibility that technical fault might have been responsible?
You suggest that “institutionalised resistance” might be involved. For institutional resistance read consistent objectivity. Our duty was to acknowledge our failing and try to ensure that it never happened again.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon
Chief of the Air Staff 1992-97
Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Alcock
Chief Engineer, RAF, 1991-96
London SW1
This letter from 2010 was written before Alcock and Graydon knew that the author of CHART had come forward. That gem was withheld deliberately, the aim being to help them dig their hole deeper. They did. Far deeper than we dared hope for.
At this period, these VSOs and the MoD staffs they briefed, consistently referred to the "53 page" CHART report. However, when I discovered there was nearly 350 additional pages, containing the most damning evidence, a Freedom of Information request was satisfied. The 53 pages had been lodged in the House of Commons library. We now had evidence that these VSOs had withheld the bulk of the report from the BoI, the FAI and both Houses. That was a serious offence.
At more or less the same time, many of the missing pages from the RTS were provided by the same MoD office, including the SFI from March 1994 warning of UFCMs. (I won't name names, but the RAF officer who provided them turned out to have a VERY close interest in the case, being aware the FAI had been misled by MoD and that the RTS was a fabrication. He is a good man). Those involved from the early days, such as Tandemrotor, Brian Dixon, Shy Torque, John Blakeley and others will confirm that the many requests for the CAR (i.e. Part 1 of the RTS) did not produce these pages; so MoD were again proven to have withheld vital evidence. Lord Philip was NOT amused. (A key clue in this case was MoD always referring to the CAR, never the RTS. You ask why this deceit, and follow the lies).
In parallel with my RTS request, I asked one of the widows to make the same request. The strategy here was we knew a different part of MoD would reply to her, because she was an "interested party". This proved correct, and MoD replied to her denying the very existence of RTSs, saying they didn't exist until 1996; naming and blaming Sir Donald Spiers for signing the only Release (his Switch On Only, not yet airworthy, CAR in Nov 1993, and AL1 in March 1994, current as of 2.6.94). So, literally on the same day, I received a full RTS (or at least, much more complete than hitherto provided) and the widow got a letter saying there was no such thing. That naming and blaming of Spiers was a gross lie, and the first indication of a break in the VSO's ranks.
Yet again, MoD were seen to lie through their back teeth, and Lord Philip was, again, NOT amused. In particular, Baroness Liddell was incandescent. The Review demanded the widow receive a written apology. She did. It is the most grovelling letter I've ever seen from a Minister's office. THAT was the day I think we knew we'd won. That Minister turned against MoD, his own Department. He did not like being lied to (whereas many are completely ambivalent about it).
Alcock and Graydon say;
You suggest we may be “trying to hide something”. Could something have been hidden for all these years when leaks from Government departments are a daily occurrence?
Their bluster was exposed by the uncovering of the complete CHART report. It debunked their entire argument. This vital evidence HAD, demonstrably, "been hidden for all these years". There were only two names on the distribution; Alcock and Bagnall. Lord Philip agreed that it was inconceivable CAS was not informed by Bagnall, as it hit Bagnall's desk in his first day as ACAS in August 1992. The CHART Leader's Terms of Reference, signed by Alcock, specifically forbade him speaking to MoD's airworthiness experts or departments, thus compartmentalising the issue.
With hindsight, the content of CHART (Aug 1992) explained the (at the time) inexplicable behaviour of Alcock's immediate subordinate, Baker, when in Dec 1992 he threatened to dismiss civilian staffs who were saying the same thing. That is, complaining about systemic airworthiness failures under Alcock's policy of "savings at the expense of safety". (A policy that had its roots in another policy promulgated by one of his predecessors, prepared in 1987. He used to post on here).
There, you have the cadre who conspired to hide this evidence. It simply did not cross their arrogant minds that the author would come forward after all these years and that he would still know exactly what to ask for. Or that anyone in MoD would know enough to prepare comprehensive and irrefutable evidence that the Chinook HC Mk2 was NOT airworthy on 2.6.94, and that ACAS knew this to be so yet still signed a false declaration that it was. You will appreciate the significance of ACAS's actions. he was both a recipient of the CHART report and signatory to the RTS. MoD withheld the former from all inquiries, and denied the existence of the latter. Alcock, Spiers, Graydon, Bagnall, Johns; none have ever been called as witnesses in this case. Yet they are the appointed mouthpieces of MoD. If they think they know so much, let them give evidence and answer questions about the offences they have committed. No? Oh dear, what a surprise.