safety typee:-
In civilian terms this would be a separate process involving the law of the land, but in military terms, the investigation, choice of action, and legal process are all under the same umbrella. This is what 'we' sign-up for in the Military, but in return there is an exchange of trust involving fairness and proportionality.
Good post, st. The process that you describe is the absolute fundamental of Service life, and few would question it or seek to alter it. Unfortunately it is also the process of UK Military Air Safety, wherein the Operator (the MOD and its subsidiary Services), the Regulator, and the Air Accident Investigator, are also under the same umbrella. The direct result of this is that the Operator has effectively compromised and rendered toothless the other two components. BoIs and SIs have been prone to improper pressure from above, and the Regulator has been made dysfunctional for some three decades thanks to VSOs issuing illegal orders, the dismissal of experienced engineers who would not obey them and their unqualified replacements who would, and the wholescale scrapping of Regulations that had been disregarded anyway, together with the ongoing cover up and denial of all of that.
Whether or not this sentence was the result of VSO pressure I do not know. If it was, then I suspect it will eventually emerge. It always does. One thing is certain however, Aviation is not swayed by such pressures and will go on killing given half a chance. We combat that by a system of Air Safety, which is however broken in UK Military Aviation. That in turn means that our Air Power is badly compromised. All that could change if the RAF confronted the lie in Haddon Cave, and admitted that the so called "Golden Period" was anything but. Only then can the need for an independent Regulator and Investigator, both of the MOD and of each other, be officially recognised and acted upon. Only then can the slow return of airworthiness happen to UK Military Aviation.