RP,
Indeed, Hammond personally will be accepting the risk and imposing it on the servicemen and women who have to fly in the aircraft. I wonder if he will be able to accurately quantify that risk for them? "Duty of Care" is the phrase that springs to mind.
If he does accept the risk he is also waiving his own requirement for the probability of a life endangering accident to be less than 1 in 10-6, which tucumseh quoted in detail above. If that level of safety is not required for RJ why is it different to the other a/c operated by the Services?
N