Sir Christopher Coville (c/o ATFQ) :-
In essence, the root causes were a stiffening of flight safety regulations post the scathing Nimrod accident review by Haddon-Cave QC,
The root cause was the deliberate and malevolent actions of a few RAF VSO's in the late 80's and early 90's. They sabotaged UK Military Air Safety for short term financial gain (to compensate for the incompetent policies of AMSO), subverting Military Airworthiness by ordering subordinates to suborn the regulations but to sign them off as complied with anyway or face disciplinary action. Pretty soon there were no experienced engineers left who knew the regulations, let alone were prepared to enforce them against such pressures. They were replaced by inexperienced untrained non-engineers who would do as they were told. The regulations themselves were scrapped so that they could not be quoted. The Airworthiness of all UK military aircraft and systems thus took a hit from which it has never recovered. All of this was covered up by subsequent serving VSOs, the MOD, Haddon-Cave, and Lord Phillip, and was only exposed in the long running campaign in this forum to reverse the infamous finding of the Mull of Kintyre BoI ROs, Messrs Wratten and Day.
It is thus not only the Air Cadets that have fallen foul of that sabotage but UK Military Aviation as a whole, particularly the Royal Air Force. The only way to start the 1000 mile march to reinstate UK Military Airworthiness provision and maintenance is to make the MAA and the MilAAIB independent of the MOD and of each other, and time is of the essence...