The lecture on Wednesday was extremely well attended, about 200 people, I would guess. The lecture itself was somewhat self congratulatory and the whole event a bit of a lawyers mutual admiration society, but good all the same.
The lecture steered clear of any controversial detail concentrating mainly on the classic cultural failures that can be found in most disasters of this nature: complex and constantly changing organisations, lack of accountability, the normalisation of deviance, increased pressure of operations combined with cost cutting, lack of challenge, the belittling of engineering knowledge, success engendered optimism and unmanaged outsourcing. Sir Charles advocated a return to core values, the establishment of accountability, and the simplifying of procedures.
In describing the MAA Sir Charles described it as being "well on the way to becoming a world class organisation, a model being adopted by the other services and other nations".
Question time was very carefully managed and only two were allowed (there being an "urgent" post-lecture drinks reception) from two named individuals who were probably known to be unlikely to say anything too controversial. If Tony Blackman was planning to say anything, he wasn't given the opportunity.
EG