Thank you for your comments. I could have chosen any number of relevant threads to post Heywood's ruling on, but did so here to highlight the absurdity of the MAA's position in this ongoing Tornado case. The ruling itself is nothing new, and will not change as long as senior staffs are permitted to judge their own case. My point is, the MAA is fully aware of it and, apparently, say nothing. Or if they do, they're quickly put back in their box.
DV rightly points out what the new MAA regulations say (the same as the old regs). The bit about "merely identifying and mitigating risks is not in itself sufficient" is key here, because directly linked to the above ruling is the practice that identifying the Risk in the first place is not to be tolerated; never mind mitigating, validating and verifying the mitigation and keeping correct records of all actions. The same people made that ruling and robustly implement it. On 15th December 2000 the 2 Star in charge of, inter alia, Nimrod MRA4 and Chinook (Mr Ian Fauset CB), used adherence to this regulation as justification for upholding disciplinary action. To many that may seem a lifetime ago, but Heywood's letter (above) actually refers to that case, citing Fauset's ruling. (As MoD point out, I am the only person who disagrees with this ruling, so there can be no objections to naming the people who apparently speak for the entire MoD and Government!)
The contradictions are clear, as is MAA's position, lodged firmly between a rock and hard place. The only way to break free is to be independent. They are headed by a raft of senior officers, up to 3 Star rank, and there is no way in this world any of them will stand up for you in the face of such rulings by their mentors. If any want to prove me wrong, please get in touch and I'll supply ALL the relevant papers. But wait, you already have them because they were provided in the evidence pack to Lord Philip, which you saw before his report was issued. And I KNOW your bosses, past and present, have read it again more recently.
As I've said before, MoD relies on the fact very few current or ex employees have the financial means to take such a matter to court. In the UK the Government offers no assistance in such cases. Corporate Manslaughter? A key component of proving this is identifying a "directing influence". Any reasonable person would consider the above ruling a bit of a giveaway, but Ministers, CPS and Police are willfully blind.