As usual, Engines and I are in agreement. An excellent post and, as he says, the same old issues arise in this case as did on Nimrod, Chinook, Hercules and the rest. THIS, I believe, is what any campaign should concentrate on. (I'm pretty certain we don't actually have a campaign here). After all, it is what won these cases, and rather easily if I may say so. It is great that the issues are aired here, but a higher profile must be attained. The media and MPs need to be aware that we've been here before, MoD has been castigated by a series of independent Reviews and Inquiries, but it is STILL happening.
But to my mind, one of the biggest questions to be answered is this - where was the Military Aviation Authority? Hadn't they carried out audits of the Air Cadet Fleet? (They were, after all, RAF aircraft). Wasn't the PT checked out? Hadn't they checked out 22 Group?
Precisely, and MoD's machinations are clearly aimed at deflecting attention from these departments. It is now 6 years, but I recall being alarmed at who the MAA appointed to do one particular aircraft audit, which was the subject of a legal Review at the time. That aircraft had not enjoyed a Local Technical Committee (whose job, ultimately, is to deliver a valid safety case) for over EIGHT years. The auditor said
so what, I always ignored that mandated requirement as well, and nothing more was said. A little digging by the MAA would have revealed the number of deaths arising from this, but they don't seem interested in such things. Or at least, the senior MAA staff don't allow the concerns of knowledgeable MAA staff to be printed. I mention the LTC because it is the process that it controls that has broken down in this ATC case.
And that is linked to Leon's question of Chug about what to do. Understanding the simple chain
Build Standard > Safety Case > RTS reveals where the boundaries of responsibility must be established. No MAA document goes remotely near this, hence the bugger's muddle we see. The mandated Standard that does spell it out was cancelled without replacement in 2008. As I tend to say, a solution emerges..... If the MAA want a copy, they only have to ask, but alternatively they could nip down to Neighbourhood 1 at ABW and just ask for current contract documents which continue to call it up. Unsurprisingly, they are the projects that run well.