I might be able to help explain the potential link between the MAA issues as set out by Chug and the scandal of the ATC gliders.
The fact here is that a fleet of military aircraft (and that's what these are - aircraft on the UK Military Aircraft Register) have now been grounded for around two and a half years, with little or no explanation from the RAF as to why. There could be many reasons why so little information has been made public, a probable one (alert - just my opinion here) being the potential for Joe Public (or Joe Newspaper) to ask why schoolchildren were being flown around the sky in aircraft that weren't being maintained in an acceptably safe manner. (One RAF officer has already said that they didn't have a safety case).
One question that needs a good answer is how the MAA has allowed this to happen. It's spent years and millions writing new regulations, setting up new occurrence reporting systems, conducting assurance activities, publishing reports (some of which read like Stalinist tractor production reports). Yet all the while the RAF was flying kids around in what appear to have been wholly inadequately maintained aircraft. What assurance activity had the MAA conducted on the FTS or 22 Gp?
This isn't an isolated case.The XX179 ejection seat accident report revealed that the seat had no safety case - but the MoD PT responsible must have been audited (and approved) by the MAA.
What I'm (badly) trying to point out is that the MoD's response to Haddon-Cave -set up a new organisation, write a load of new regulations and set up loads of 'top down' safety management systems - might just not be working as intended. Certainly not in the RAF's gliding organisation.
And that's a worry. Or it should be.
Best regards as ever to all those trying to do the right things,
Engines