What I'd like to know is why MoD has pursued this officer, but condoned far worse
Something that is probably worth adding to Tuc's list of events, concerning senior officers covering their own arses, is the one which spawned from the inquiry into a low-flying RAF C130 which hit and killed a soldier who was standing atop a vehicle at South Cerney, in August 1994.
I seem to recall that this inquiry then uncovered a tradition whereby some C130 aircrew, written down in the authorisation sheets as members of C130 crews, were then not landing with the aircraft they took off in! That is, some of the crew were making unauthorised para-jumps at the end of sorties and so
not completing the sorties with the aircraft they were supposed to be crewing!
It raised a stink at the time, and as the investigation started uncovering more and more evidence of this 'tradition' having been going on for many, many years, more and more people up the chain of command were being implicated! Is it not true that the investigation into uncovering these unauthorsed jumpers was pressured in to stopping when culprits at Wing Commander level started to show up on the radar? It seems that the really senior officers didn't want that particular trail of slowly burning gunpowder to reach the stacked kegs in RAF Ivory Towers ......... or can anyone here say otherwise?
In any event, Tuc is quite right. The Chinook accident alone and the disgraceful aftermath that it occasioned is reason enough to hold the MoD and certain very senior RAF officers in complete and utter contempt. The lies, obfuscation and cover-up were, and still are, a stain on the the otherwise magnificent history and tradition of the RAF. It sickens me to the core that certain very senior officers have not faced the legal processes they
should have been forced to face, for their self-seeking actions in connection with this particular accident. A disgrace beyond explanation ...........