Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[Fitter2]

Fitter2. In answer to your question; I simply do not know whether or not the a/c should have been in service. What is your point? JP
My point, since it seems necessary to make the obvious in boring detail for your benefit:

I find it unfathomable that in the face of overwhelming evidence someone refuses to acknowledge the airworthiness (or to be precise, lack of) of an aircraft involved in a major accident, but (in the total absence of evidence to support their view) is certain they knew what happened.

You must be an Air Rank Officer.

[walter kennedy]

Cows
I really appologise for not immediately recognising the importance of your picture – of course outwardly the UHF antenna pair are identical to the old Violet Picture UHF homing kit – so an outsider would not see anything new.
What was new was the kit inside – in addition to UHF homing, it gave a DME function to a hand held beacon (PRC112 type) allowing all-weather approaches to assault zones, forward LZs, etc – here's a picture of the whole system (if I haven't already posted this):
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee134/grauniad/ComplSystemPiccie.jpg


What surprises me is that Chugalug2 hasn't commented yet despite him having knowledge of the older UHF homer, and being such a prolific contributor to this thread – I recall someone sometime back writing that the HP's intercom was set to UHF guard?; well here is a snippet of a post made by Chuggers in 29 Aug 2008 on the “Gaining an RAF … brevet” thread:
<<Regarding Violet Picture …. it was tied into the UHF T/R, by selecting ADF. If the recvr was tuned to Guard (243) then it became a means to home in on a Sarbe emergency beacon, and it was SOP to have this combination selected especially for Sea Transit. >>

[John Purdey]

Fitter2. "You must be an Air Rank Officer" You can take the chip off your shoulder, I was once a FIIA! JP

[Chugalug2]

What surprises me is that Chugalug2 hasn't commented yet despite him having knowledge of the older UHF homer, and being such a prolific contributor to this thread – I recall someone sometime back writing that the HP's intercom was set to UHF guard?; well here is a snippet of a post made by Chuggers in 29 Aug 2008 on the “Gaining an RAF … brevet” thread:
<<Regarding Violet Picture …. it was tied into the UHF T/R, by selecting ADF. If the recvr was tuned to Guard (243) then it became a means to home in on a Sarbe emergency beacon, and it was SOP to have this combination selected especially for Sea Transit. >>
Walter, you have it seems proved what you have maintained all along, that the HC2 could home in on a Covert Personal Locator Beacon thanks to an easily rackable removable fit . Don't, I beg you, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by seeing me as someone concealing that information. All I know about such things is pretty well summed up by the quotation above, ie we had a fit in the Hastings which merely fed a L/R meter on the instrument coaming. I suspect that the technology has moved on in leaps and bounds since then, the only common denominator being the twin aerials common to both systems it would seem. I know nothing about such fits in the Chinook, I never flew the Chinook, it has always been my firm belief that the Almighty never meant wings to go round and round! I left military flying in 1973 (yes, I know!). Congratulations on your success it only goes to show, as with so much of this scandal, that if you keep on digging something of interest will surely turn up!
Chug

[Fitter2]

Fitter2. "You must be an Air Rank Officer" You can take the chip off your shoulder, I was once a FIIA! JP

Shoulders checked..........nope, chips totally absent. I never had ambitions to Air Rank (although I have employed the odd one since leaving Her Majesty's service).

So you were an FIIA. Fascinating. Which of the qualifications left you unable to answer a straight question? Presumably one of the financial ones, from my dealings with the accountancy profession.


Acronym Definition
FIIA Finnish Institute of International Affairs (Helsinki, Finland)
FIIA Foreign Investment Implementation Authority (India)
FIIA Financial Institutions Insurance Association
FIIA Fidelity International Investment Advisors (UK)
FIIA Fellowship of the Institute of Internal Auditors (UK)

Actually (apart from the ability to answer questions honestly) this has little to do with the business of why an unairworthy aircraft hit the Mull.

[walter kennedy]

Chugalug
I appologise for that one. Thanks for not snapping back too hard!
Walter

[Chugalug2]

Thank you Walter. Someone posting on this thread saying "Sorry, I was wrong" is a refreshing and uplifting change from the usual dogged and entrenched positions of the MOD apologists that is its usual diet. So no problem, and respect to you for displaying such standards above the morass that many here wallow in.

[bast0n]

Chugaz!!!

and respect to you for displaying such standards above the morass that many here wallow in.

Pretentious - vous??????????:ok:

[Chugalug2]

Et tu, baston? Well no doubt you're right, in which case why don't you show us all the correct "staffed" way of congratulating Walter on his coup? After years of condescension, ridicule and being patronised it seems he was on to something after all. Now I wonder what is going to turn up next?

[bast0n]

Chugaz

I am not very staff trained!

Are you saying that on Walters evidence they may have been doing a 'self approach' to the Mull?

I do hope not in the visibility as stated by the onlookers on the ground.

If they did, that is a tad more than careless wouldn't you agree?

[Chugalug2]

I am saying no such thing, baston (as well you know). That I believe was Walter's proposition, given that such a homing device was fitted. It would seem that the given, at least, could have been so. That is all.

[John Blakeley]

Having met with him in Perth some years ago I am glad to see that Walter has proved that he was right about what kit was fitted, and the fact that it was not correctly covered by the paperwork or the MOD responses continues to say even more about airworthiness and the issues of the Chinook Mk2 introduction to service, together with the many investigative failures of the BoI. However, I do not agree with the rest of Walter’s theory – for which I have not seen any convincing evidence.

Baston's point, more innuendo (ie a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas) than anything else I suggest, that, based on Walter’s theory, it would have been careless of them to have continued to approach the Mull in that weather is yet again trying to justify the original speculation and hence the pilots’ guilt – especially since it is an undisputed fact that they had changed waypoints whilst approaching the Mull. Why would they do this if they planned to approach the landing site? I could think of several reasons relating to known airworthiness issues as to why, having made the waypoint change, they might have made a sudden change of plan and decided they had to land at the Mull helicopter landing site, but they would also be speculation.

This thread is about why they were found guilty of Gross Negligence based on speculation by senior officers, and not supported by the BoI’s findings, at the time, and NOT on trying to make facts from speculation on what caused the crash – we don’t know and will never know this, and I have difficulty in understanding why so many contributors cannot grasp this fact. Clearly we are all entitled to our thoughts and to express an opinion, but finding such guilt based on opinions and not facts is not part of our system of justice, and, as all who write here know, was against the RAF's own rules of the time. Everything we have found out about the airworthiness issues and the mistakes made in the Introduction to Service since that time makes such a finding, already unjustified under these rules, even less credible.

Instead of continuing to go round in circles I would still like to see one of these contributors who are so certain that they “know” the answers and can therefore justify the guilty verdicts of what amounts to manslaughter against the pilots, answer the simple questions I asked in post 6256 – which had been put to the AOCinC without getting any response. Any takers?

JB

[John Purdey]

John Blakeley. It is not for me to defend their airships, bu I am amused by your reference to your 'simple questions ' earlier. When I scrolled back, I found that you had asked at least eight questions in that verbose posting. No wonder you did not get a straight answer. Regards JP

[X767]

JP

I think ANY answer would be the right and courteous reply.

X767

[John Blakeley]

JP,

You must be getting pretty desperate with this response! Far beneath your usual standard. As far as I can see the only thing you do is to defend their airships, as you call them. They were, verbose or not, simple questions. But then in my view you have never responded, with anything other than blind support for the Reviewing Officers' speculation, to simple questions on why the verdict, which broke their own rules, was justified either. You have also, as far as I can see, refused to acknowledge or consider at all that the many facts that support the airworthiness and Introduction to Service issues the aircraft had might in some way support the need to cast doubt on the "rule breaking" verdict either! Since you know what caused the crash perhaps you know the answers, and you could answer a couple of the simple questions to help me out.

JB

[Thud_and_Blunder]

I'm having a slow day here - I removed Walt from my ignore list again to have a look at this evidence people find compelling and found:

- 2 pictures of HC2s that he'd posted (the second one is an HC2, Walt - that colour scheme didn't come in 'til the Mid Life Update, and HH was never a unit code on any HC1 in the early 1990s), both of which have the UHF homing aerials fitted. In the second photo, one is in front of the mainwheel leg and the other is to the left of the retractable landing light.

- A picture from CGB showing the original paintscheme plus the same aerials.

I'm aware from later ops that the walk-on CPLS was/is able to use the same aerials.

How then, despite Walt's misidentification of the 2nd a/c in his picture and the presence of the same aerials in both, does this somehow translate into his being right all along?

[bast0n]

JB

Baston's point, more innuendo (ie a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas) than anything else I suggest, that, based on Walter’s theory, it would have been careless of them to have continued to approach the Mull in that weather is yet again trying to justify the original speculation and hence the pilots’ guilt

Sorry JB - but no, that is incorrect.

Are you saying that on Walters evidence they may have been doing a 'self approach' to the Mull?

I asked this of CHUGAZ subsequent to his post that I found intriguing.

Pilots guilt - well yes. If you read my posts I have always been of the opinion that a verdict of pilot error was much nearer the mark than gross negligence. If however they HAD been making an approach in that weather - and I have not a clue as to wether they were, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Someone somewhere would have known about it and presumably authourised it. It would have been a foolish thing to do.

[John Purdey]

John Blakeley. I have never commented on the airworthiness aspects of this case because I am not qualified to do so, and even if I were so qualified I have not seen the documents.
But my background does permit me to point out that the crew committed a grave breach of airmanship by flying as they did and where they did in those weather conditions.
You may well say that the a/c should not have been flying at all, but the plain fact is that it was flying and this crew was flying it.
I am sure I do not need to repeat the whole argument yet again, but it has nothing to do with blind suport of the AMs. Regards JP

[John Blakeley]

BastOn,

I am happy to be corrected, especially as the rest of your new post reinforces the point that I and others are trying to make. If indeed Walter's theory were to be correct and they were making an approach to the Mull for a trial, for which they would have been authorised, it was a major failure of the BoI not to recognise this. If having been authorised for such a trial they had pressed on into bad weather then as a minimum pilot error could have been involved - indeed it is my understanding that at the time of the BoI, for whatever the thinking was, the families were told that there could be a verdict of "balance of probabilities pilot error".

I don't think they were conducting such a trial since I cannot believe that on the operations side the BoI would have failed to find this out (the engineering side is a completely different matter) and again if they intended to approach the Mull landing site why did they change waypoints? The BoI of course in the end did not come up with a pilot error verdict since, rightly, they did not have enough evidence to support this, and I would question even their "error of judgement" comment since all the evidence points to the fact that the last thing the crew intended to do, either in their flight planning or in the last moments leading to the waypoint change, was to attempt to climb over Mull. To remind you:

The Board was unable to positively determine the sequence of events leading up to the accident, and therefore concluded that although it is likely that Flt Lt TAPPER made an Error of Judgement in the conduct of the attempted climb over the Mull of Kintyre, it would be incorrect to criticise him for human failings based on the available evidence.

However, the bottom line and the point you make is that even if a pilot error verdict could be supported with facts (not speculation as I see JP repeats yet again in his latest post where he again refuses to recognise that issues which question the airworthiness of the aircraft could also have affected the crew's ability to fly it on the planned and safe flight path) this is a long way from the finding of criminal irresponsbility that the Gross Negligence verdict (based on ignoring the rules and even wilder speculation) means. That, and not speculation on either the operations or engineering side as to the cause of this accident, is, I believe, what this thread is about.

JB

[BOAC]

It is an interesting conundrum as to what the 'motives' of some of our posters are. Whether it is a form of protective 'croneysism' of which we are unaware due to anonymity here, a blind faith in the absolute infallibility of 'senior officers' or just a lack of comprehension I know not, but comments like "But my background does permit me to point out that the crew committed a grave breach of airmanship by flying as they did and where they did in those weather conditions" leave me wondering what insight these posters have that the BoI did not - if any? My background of several years of low-level ops does not 'permit me' to make those assumptions. I can surmise but not be certain. Perhaps I should also add for the sake of clarity that I am acquainted with some of the senior officers involved, but not the crew?

[John Purdey]

BOAC. I must have missed something; I thought it was generally agreed here that the a/c flew into IMC well below the appropriate SA. What is disputed is why the a/c did so, n'est pas? JP

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

BOAC. I must have missed something; I thought it was generally assumed here that the a/c flew into IMC well below the appropriate SA. What is disputed is why the a/c did so, n'est pas? JP

As no one actually knows if they entered IMC I think it reads more accurately as above :ok:

[bast0n]

Seldom

As no one actually knows if they entered IMC

As they hit the hill the observers on the ground were in thick fog..................IMC?

[BOAC]

JP - nothing in dispute - as far as I know it was established that conditions at the crash site were IMC and yes, the impact was below the 6000' plus SA. The only thing in dispute is that you appear to know why they crashed whereas the BoI and the great mass of professional opinion here do not. The real puzzle is what drives you and a few others to be so certain.

[John Purdey]

BOAC. Thankyou for the above. I think you will find that the only remaining dispute is why the aircraft did not turn port and thus up the coast, rather than continuing across the Mull, as it did. I have offered an explanation that fits all the facts, and no-one has challenged that explanation nor offered a better one. Regards JP

[tucumseh]

John

no-one has challenged that explanation nor offered a better one

Sqn Ldr Burke stated precisely what could have happened, as he had experienced it on numerous occasions. (UFCM). However, I agree it is possible he has not actually challenged YOU on this forum or in person. As to whose explanation is "better", I expect he (rightly) regards himself an authority on such matters. Also, the events he spoke of are a matter of record. These are facts even MoD agree with.

Given then that there are at least two explanations (yours and Sqn Ldr Burke's), that would tend to indicate uncertainty. That breeds doubt.

[Fitter2]

JP claims
I have offered an explanation that fits all the facts, and no-one has challenged that explanation nor offered a better one.

For many of us your 'explanation' (forgive me if have misunderstood it) is that an experienced crew, not only the two pilots but also a crewman noted for expressing his views on the safe conduct of an operational flight, either deliberately or casually flew into straight into IMC and then into the Mull.

This does not 'fit the facts'. It is merely an opinion unsupported by any FR or CVR. The fact that it is similar to the opinion of Wratten and Day does not give it any particular credibility.

A system failure that prevented the intended course change and remaining in VMC, similar to other system failures which resulted in the recommendation from Boscombe Down to ground the type is at least equally likely. I prefer Sqn. Ldr. Burke's view.

[dalek]

Baston,
Is your memory so bad you have forgotten that all this has been discussed before.
Everyone accepts that the lighthouse observers were in fog. Most people accept that Mr Holbrook describes (marginal ) VMC.
Since the Chinook crew were neither in the boat or the lighthouse nobody knows if and when the Chinook went IMC.
Now most of us accept that because of the close proximity of the crash site and the lighthouse,it is highly likely the crew went IMC. That does not constitute absolute proof. Remember the discussion on well defined fog bank edges? There were no observers at the crash site.
Even if the crew went IMC, to be negligent it would have to be deliberate and with the aircraft under control. Sqn Ldr Burke, the leading expert of the time, says this "may" not have been the case.

[ExGrunt]

JP claims
Quote:
I have offered an explanation that fits all the facts, and no-one has challenged that explanation nor offered a better one.

May I draw you attention to my previous post 4309 (quoted below), to which I note no one has produced an explanation of why this scenario could not have happened, something that is necessary to sustain a verdict of gross negligence:


Quote:
Perhaps, encompassing everybody's theory (and being slightly fanciful), the crew had just made the waypoint change when a spurious Eng Fail caption light came on, the crew then made a slight turn to the right to make landfall for an emergency landing and, due to the distraction, hit the Mull. I can't prove that to be correct (and actually doubt it to be correct), but there is no-one who can actually prove it wrong, based upon what little evidence is known. Absolutely no doubt whatsoever? I don't think so.
Or not much more fanciful:

At the waypoint change the handling pilot applied significant control inputs to turn left up the coast of the Mull causing the connections in the broom cupboard to fail(1) inducing sudden continued changes in fore and aft pitch(2)(3) causing DECU connectors to come partly loose generating multiple spurious warnings(4). The jolting and erroneous warnings overwhelmed the aircrew and uncontrolled the chinook flew on into the fog covered Mull.

Notes:

1. HoL Report Para 57: 57. After the accident the investigators found that both inserts for the thrust balance spring attachment bracket had detached as well as most of the other inserts to both pallets. The AAIB stated, "as an insert could apparently pull out of the pallet without appreciable distress to the components necessarily resulting, the possibility that insert(s) had detached prior to the accident could not be dismissed" (para 7.4.2). In the Flight Control Summary the AAIB reiterated that "the possibility of control system jam could not be positively dismissed" and further stated that "little evidence was available to eliminate the possibility of pre-impact detachment of any of the pallet components" (para 7.4.9).

2. HoL Report Para 115: 115. Witness A also had personal experience of UFCMs in Chinook Mk 1s (QQ 792-6). In one case over a period of days an aircraft bounced vertically every time it was turned right.

3. HoL Report Para 111: 111. In relation to possible jams Squadron Leader Burke explained that, due to the complexity of the Chinook control system, a jam caused by a loose article such as the balance spring in the broom cupboard in one of the three axes, pitch, yaw or roll, could lead to quite random results in all three axes sometimes and certainly in two of them. He had personal experience while lifting off from the ground of a jam in one axis affecting the other two (Q 935).

4. HoL Report Para 54: 54. The AAIB considered the engines and controls and because of the reported FADEC service difficulties investigated the DECUs in detail. DECU no. 2 remained partially functionable with deficiencies consistent with impact damage, and with no faults or exceedances traced in its memory of the last flight. DECU no. 1 had suffered gross fire damage with part of its casing melted away and severe damage to the interior components whereby its memories of exceedance and fault listing had been destroyed.

5. I have not seen the SuperTANs report, but nothing I have read shows that it recorded the attitude of ZD576.

Of course uncommanded pitch changes would mean that there was never any last minute flare.

Equally the lack of a chain of events of co-incident broom cupboard and DECU failures would explain the lack of any further accidents.

Like Brian, I cannot say that this scenario occurred, but to find the pilots guilty of gross negligence then to my mind you have to prove this scenario could not happen.

EG


I am open to hearing how this scenario could not have happened, care to elaborate JP?

EG

[John Purdey]

BOAC. You have asked about the motives of folk like me, and you deserve a reply; please have a look at the outrageous conspiracy I outlined at 5301. It was in the hope of stopping such nonsense that I engaged. Regards JP

[John Purdey]

ExGrunt. Suggest you add you newest explanation of the crash to those I outline at 5455. With all good wishes, JP

[bast0n]

Dalek

ALL this has been discussed before!! Remember my posts on Oooslem birds!

Even if the crew went IMC, to be negligent it would have to be deliberate and with the aircraft under control. Sqn Ldr Burke, the leading expert of the time, says this "may" not have been the case.

To save you the effort this is what I said recently.

If you read my posts I have always been of the opinion that a verdict of pilot error was much nearer the mark than gross negligence.

and yes to another post - it is quite possible that if they had a problem both heads could have been down in the cockpit etc etc etc.................ad infinitums past.

Believe whom you will - Sqdn Ldr Burke or whoever else has a view.....:ok:

[BOAC]

JP - thanks for revisiting that post. I think the vast majority here agree with #5302 which ably answered your post, and in fact since July we have gathered even more indications that 1) was correct and it begins to look as if a lot of the rest were too.

[tucumseh]

JP

I had quite forgotten your excellent summary at post #5301, which I hope you don't mind me copying below.


I note the lack of reasoned response, so may I remind you of the reason that led to my joining this discussion some three years ago. It was the allegation that:

1. This Mk of Chinook was put into service when it was not fit for such service.
2. The RAF hierachy (that is to say CAS, CinC, AOC, and their staffs) knew full well that it was not fit to enter service but nevertheless insisted that it be flown.
3. When the Chinook crashed into the Mull, the heirachy decided to blame two innocent pilots in order to conceal their own failings.
4. This view was supported by the Air, Flight Safety, Engineer and Legal Saffs at Group, Command, AFB and MOD levels
5. Since then, no whistle-blower at any level has dared to put his head above the parapet to expose this conspiracy.
You will be aware 1. and 2. are now established facts following MoD's (perhaps inadvertent) release of key documents which they had withheld from all previous inquiries. (A serious offence).

The emergence of these documents renders your 5th point academic - there is no need to "blow the whistle" as MoD have held their hands up.

On point 3. there is no doubt the RAF hierarchy blamed the pilots. It is also beyond doubt that, if the above documents and facts had been known to the inquiry teams, said senior officers would have faced severe censure, if not legal action. (You will be aware two serving officers are being investigated following the Nimrod Review - their alleged offences are nothing compared to those perpetrated on Chinook). Deliberately misrepresenting the facts and issuing a fabricated CAR and RTS, thereby knowingly endangering aircrew, is a serious offence.

On point 4. I cannot speak for all these departments but, for example, the record shows the MoD(PE) Project Director pleaded with his bosses to take heed of Boscombe's advice that the aircraft should not be declared airworthy. I also understand the formal legal advice was against the gross negligence verdict. If "Flight Safety" or "Engineering" signed up to a decision to ignore Boscombe's "positively dangerous" advice, then I would describe that as criminal. It is far more likely that they were not told; just as the BoI, HofL, HofC, Sheriff and, most importantly, the aircrew, were not.

Again, thank you for reminding us of the facts.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Seldom



As they hit the hill the observers on the ground were in thick fog but were some distance from and not in visual contact with the impact point..................IMC is highly likely but an assumption never the less.

Just got back from a fantastic holiday in Negril, Jamaica. On Monday afternoon whilst relaxing in the surf with Mrs SFFP the lone black cloud above decided to pour it's contents onto us. We stayed in the surf and laughed as the beach in front of us emptied but noticed 100 yards or so to our left the beach was bathed in sunshine with folk lounging on their sun beds soaking up the rays.

One of the things my 3 tours on SH taught me is that the weather does strange things at times :ok:

[John Purdey]

Boac. 5302 by no means answered my earlier post, and that reply was of course posted by Chugaluk2 who, you will recall, talked about the crew being 'stiched up' by the Air Marshals. A disgraceful slur on our fine Service.
Tucumseh. Is that really all you have to say?
I stand by what I have said. Please try harder. John Purdey

[bast0n]

Seldom

I was willing that cloud to find you.....................

You didn't go IMC inadvertently I hope................:ok:

[Fitter2]

JP

The disgraceful slur on two pilots is what has brought the service into disrepute. Together with ignoring basic airworthiness in the pursuit of career advancement.

I assume you have not read the Haddon-Cave's report. Why, following that, are Senior Officers under investigation?

[tucumseh]

JP

Thank you once again for that confirmation. Your 5 points at #5301 were spot on. :ok:

[BOAC]

JP - I fear our 'loyalties' will never match but in my opinion, if all we are seeing develop here is true, it is the Air Marshals. which are A disgraceful slur on our fine Service.

[John Purdey]

Tucumseh. Very pleased to see that you agree with my analysis and, I presume, its implications at 5301.
BOAC, please try harder.
JP

[John Purdey]

Fitter2. Please see the other posts, and just by the way, a FIIA was a Fitter2 (Airframe), I thought you would know that! JP

[walter kennedy]

John Blakeley
I am rather disappointed in your recent posts:
I believe that I have adequately described (in numerous posts) the weather most probable on the Mull at the time of the crash – it was prevalent at that time of day, at that time of year, with a southerly blowing – you have had 15 years to visit the area and see for yourself; it would not have concealed the presence of the Mull but it would have made visual judgement of range very difficult if needing to approach a specific point on the Mull such that if they had been using some navigation system reference that was incorrect there would not have been the visual cues to alert them to any error. They would not have been in IMC until the last few seconds.

My analysis gave me the strong conviction that they were approaching a specific point under control and that they would not have been doing so in those conditions without a local reference in which they had confidence.
Had they crossed the known LZ on 035 mag, they had only to start a banked turn to the left when they crossed the shoreline to swing around the lighthouse for a safe wave-off and so were not doing anything wrong in approaching this spot at speed if they had guidance to that LZ.
The CPLS was the only candidate system that could have been so used and so I have been insisting that it must have been used, despite this system apparently being a taboo subject – the evidence for its use was the analysis and now that it seems that the kit was fitted, it is really a case of QED.
The ground set (PRC112) only needed to have been ½ mile or so up the hill to explain all that is known about this crash; with their oblique approach angle to the shore, this explains their premature turn onto 035 and their apparent surprise at the proximity to the slope. Not bringing this equipment to the attention of the civil authorities has wasted inquiries that may have been able to establish just blame on whoever messed up this exercise and establsh whether it was accidental or wilful.
There was no evidence whatsoever for a control jam or engine control problem. When we met in Perth all those years ago and I was concerned that they had been misled by DME, did you not know of the CPLS that you did not mention it? Do you not think that the air accident investigators should have been informed of a significant local navigation system being on-board? Does this not make the verdicts against the pilots void, that such a system was not considered? What a stinking disgrace.

[Robin Clark]

JP
I had not disputed the Fog signal station idea because I thought it was so silly it was a joke , although I think some guy wrote a book based apon it......
the fog station is on a short part of East/West coast , whereas the lighthouse is on a North/South section of coast .............. pretty basic error or what.??..
I don't think even my daughter would have made that mistake when she was 8.....
I have a scenario which I think is plausible , but runs to over 1000 words now , so I have put it on my own web site , I still have to add diagrams so will post a link when its ready....
rgds Robin....

[deeceethree]

JP,
A disgraceful slur on our fine Service. Yes, I would have to agree - the unsupportable opinions of those stuffed shirts that call themselves Air Marshalls is, indeed, a disgraceful slur. But then the RAF is but a shadow of the proud service I believe I started in. Now, sadly, it is a top-heavy crumbling facade, with the stuffed shirts falling over themselves continuing to climb the greasy pole, at the top of which is a lofty view of bugger all.


tucumseh,

I believe you rattled JP's cage - nice one! :ok:

[Fitter2]

DC3

Sadly, JP is in denial. It is a well known and treatable condition, but the patient has to want to be treated.

Lets see if David Cameron lives up to the promises in his letter - not long to wait.

[Chugalug2]

Fitter I agree with your diagnosis, the catch is that JP has to accept it also, but that is his misfortune. The diagnosis by tucumseh of JP's post #5301 does not agree with JP's proposition that his itemised points are simply incredible, for they have been shown to be essentially the truth, more denial working there I'm afraid. What it does do is to show clearly that if we want the dreadful cost of the Chinook, Sea King, Tornado, Hercules and Nimrod accidents, that killed 62 people and that all had airworthiness deficiencies, not to be repeated ad infinitum then the imperative is to return full airworthiness provision to the UK Military Airfleet. The proposed means of doing that, the "Independent within the MOD" MAA, will not work. It is a turkey. It will only work if it becomes an "Independent outside the MOD" MAA. That is the challenge now. Cameron may well restore the reputations of the deceased Chinook Pilots, he should, but he must also reform the monstrous carbuncle that is the MOD, and start by making the MAA separate and independent of it.

[John Purdey]

Just to save people the trouble of searching back for item 5301, this was the very serious allegation to which I referred:
1. This Mk of Chinook was put into service when it was not fit for such service.
2. The RAF hierachy (that is to say CAS, CinC, AOC, and their staffs) knew full well that it was not fit to enter service but nevertheless insisted that it be flown.
3. When the Chinook crashed into the Mull, the heirachy decided to blame two innocent pilots in order to conceal their own failings.
4. This view was supported by the Air, Flight Safety, Engineer and Legal Saffs at Group, Command, AFB and MOD levels
5. Since then, no whistle-blower at any level has dared to put his head above the parapet to expose this conspiracy.

I hope this helps. Regards JP

[tucumseh]

Ok JP, stop blowing your own trumpet. We know you got it right. Congratulations. It's not exactly a revelation. That MoD induge in this behaviour is well established fact. :ok:

[Fitter2]

Except for item 5; several whistle blowers, most notably Sqn. Ldr. Burke have exposed the airworthiness failings detailed in item 2 of JPs list.

One question is whether those who ordered him not to do so are guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?

[BOAC]

Indeed, Fitter - and JP, having got most of it right with his analysis, missed off para 5 (a) which is:

Others who have aided with the serious allegations, namely Ralph Kohn and his chaps at #5976 et seq.

[Chugalug2]

JP it seems that my reply to your post #5301, ie #5302 (page 266 in Hymns Ancient & Modern, everyone), "by no means answered your post". Well it still stands up for me JP, given that it dates from last July and many cubic metres of H2O have flowed since then:
JP. Answer to question1: Yes. Answer to other questions; I don't know who knew what or what actions individuals took or didn't take. I am convinced that the reason this aircraft crashed has yet to be determined because the Accident Investigation conducted by the RAF at the time was woeful. That is why there should be a new, objective and fair investigation into every aspect of this tragedy. The main effect to my mind of the BoI/RO's efforts to date has been to obscure the lack of Airworthiness Regulation enforcement by the MOD. We know that since this crash there have been at least two other such tragedies (though I suspect even more) involving lack of airworthiness, accounting for a further 24 needless deaths. It is just possible if the airworthiness shortcomings of the MOD had been exposed by this BoI, those later deaths might have been avoided. I'm sure that this answer is unacceptable to you, like all my others. Too bad.
As BOAC has pointed out, many more of your points seem to have hardened up since then. Congratulations on your prescient forecast, old chap!

[John Purdey]

Robin Clark. Re your 6367, may we all please have a look at your 1000 word explanation? Regards JP

[Bertie Thruster]

blimey JP, even with my limited intelligence it's not difficult! He even says he has a web page.

google; Robin Clark Chinook.

or if that's too complicated to do;

ROBIN J CLARK - The Chinook Story (http://www.robinjclark.co.uk/page2.htm)

[tucumseh]

JP

Further to your excellent summary of the facts at #5301, have YOU given any thought to what offences were committed (at your points 1. and 2.) by CA and ACAS; and anyone else who was party to the deliberate decision to ignore Boscombe warnings and advice, and misrepresent the facts in a fabricated CAR/RTS? Given his support of the ROs, one assumes this includes, as you say, CAS. His only defence would be to say his subordinates had withheld the facts from him.

You know my own feelings. Something along the lines of "false representation" (of the facts), failure of "Duty of Care" and "gross negligence" seems appropriate.

[John Purdey]

Bertie T. Many thanks; I had not been before directed to that site. Regards. JP

[John Blakeley]

Walter,

I am sorry about your disappointment since I can certainly agree with the conclusions you make at your 24 March posting, and I think I said that you appeared to have been proved correct re your insistence on the fitment of the CPLS. However, I do not accept your comment that there was "no evidence whatsoever of a control jam or engine control malfunction" - the former is certainly a possibility from the AAIB Report (which I seem to recall I sent you) and the latter formed part of the RTS. I also cannot see why they would have changed waypoints had they been conducting the trial that you postulate.

But in terms of the purpose of this thread none of this seems to me to be relevant anyway. Although I do not see that such a trial could have been missed from the BoI's investigation on the operational side they missed or failed to investigate, or were kept in the dark about, so much else that I have to accept that your theory should not be dismissed any more than mine or indeed pilot error should be - none of us will never know what happened. The point of this thread, with which I believe we both agree, is that the criminal verdict of "Gross Negligence" cannot be justified except on the basis of speculation, and the dangererous failings of that speculation have become ever more obvious as the real facts behind the airworthiness and Introduction to Service of the Chinook Mk2 have emerged - including, it now appears, a failure to even admit/know what the equipment fit was and the potential implications of it being fitted. All of this makes this speculation, even admitted at the start of the SRO's comments, on which the "Gross Negligence" verdict is based ever more unjust and unjustifiable. To quote and support your words the verdict is indeed a "stinking disgrace".

JB

[Robin Clark]

I see some guys already found the earlier draft of my scenario.....I found it easier to edit it on my own office server , and so the current version is at
gneiss.dyndns.info/chinook.htm (http://www.gneiss.dnydns.info/chinook.htm)

it does not need a www , so you may have to copy/paste...or use
this link (http://gneiss.dyndns.info/chinook.htm)

The server is not left up 24 hours though , so best tried 9am-9pm UK time..
I arrived at this as the most likely scenario which fits all the known facts.....I do not think there is anything in it which certain AM can dispute.....
I think a dual pronged approach is good , legal challenges and providing ideas such as this are not mutually exclusive , indeed they add to the fight .......

rgds all ..Robin...

[engpil]

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000105 EndHTML:0000011206 StartFragment:0000002315 EndFragment:0000011170
This correspondence has concentrated on whether the pilots made an error, and on whether the Air Marshals and consequently the Ministers made a different kind of error in condemning the pilots.

I believe the more significant factor is that few people understand software failure behaviour.

(1) All software, like hardware, contains design errors, which can become failures when the software/hardware is run.

(2) When software commits a failure, it is usually impossible to find it by running the software under some "test conditions". One reason for this is that when the software is re-initialised or the equipment switched off and on again, you now have, in effect, as-new software with no evidence of the failure. Those who are not educated in software then say "There you are, no fault". This occurs quite widely (and is probably relevant to Toyota's present problems). Even the senior avionics officer at the CAA a few years ago claimed that the lack of maintenance reports blaming software showed that there was no significant software problem.

(3) There is no in-service built-in test that can identify a fault as caused by software rather than hardware.

(4) Published papers have suggested that, variously, 50% to 80% of software failure modes never recur.

(5) Any software running a safety-related function should therefore not be assumed to be fault free even if the fault cannot be reproduced.

(6) These conditions make it easy for the suppliers of the software to disclaim responsibility, since proof is difficult.

(7) Since few people of senior rank in any organisation understand this, they are easily led to blame other causes for mishaps.

(8) There are ways to compensate for the inevitable software failures, but they mean spending more. (One of those methods is thorough logical and functional analysis, such as is done by Praxis, for example). Standby redundancy may also be needed, as is used in the Space Shuttle guidance, navigation and control computing.

[endplay]

that makes sense to me.

[tucumseh]

engpil

Excellent post.

The MoD's own policy, procedures and training, both at the time and now, say exactly the same thing.

The Reviewing Officers ignored them.

[Chugalug2]

engpil:
.....and on whether the Air Marshals and consequently the Ministers made a different kind of error in condemning the pilots.
Well, first may I welcome you and your excellent maiden post, engpil. I must regretfully however take issue with you over the quote above. The action taken by the "Air Marshals", by which I presume you mean the Messrs Wratton and Day, were calculated, deliberate and based on knowledge of the unprecedented RTS of an aircraft type into RAF service while suffering severe technical shortcomings that amounted to it being Grossly Unairworthy. That knowledge was seemingly not shared with the BoI charged to investigate the fatal accident of an aircraft of that type on the Mull of Kintyre in which 29 people died. That they then saw fit to construct a bogus case against the deceased pilots in order to find them Grossly Negligent may be seen in retrospect as an "error" but was at the time a calculated deliberate act that had the effect of obscuring the RTS "irregularities". Ministers of course do not make errors, they are merely badly advised!

[Thor Nogson]

Engpil,

Your post raises a couple of quite relevant questions, and merits a few clarifications.

The clarifications first. It's probably a generalisation to say that all software has faults, though it is fairly likely of any non-trivial system.

Also, safety critical software, in particular that which may lead to loss of life if it fails is incredibly resilient if developed correctly. The current benchmark is less than one failure every billion hours. i.e. over 100 millenia

Obviously things have moved on since the 80's, but even then safety critical software developed with the appropriate tools, methodology and management should have been more than adequate for the purpose.

Having said this all, we need to concern ourselves with the systems in question. I think the team auditing the system had a fair understanding of the issues, and would have been shocked to find the mean time between failures measured more appropriately in minutes rather than millenia.

Back to the questions.

Are the software issues a significant factor?

Yes, clearly, in different ways. Firstly, they do provide a possible cause for the accident which cannot be ruled out for the reasons you suggest.

Secondly, they demonstrate that the aircraft was not airworthy and should not have been released to service. I do not find it credible that anyone can look at the known evidence with an open mind and not see this.

Following on from that, with what was known at the time, was it acceptable to sign the RTS? I personally believe this goes beyond Gross Negligence as it must have been a conscious decision.

Anyway, keep up the good work all. Hopefully someone will remind DC of his promise when the dust settles...

TN

[Cows getting bigger]

I personally believe this goes beyond Gross Negligence as it must have been a conscious decision.

Very well put. A far more conscious (and considered?) decision than a crew allegedly driving into cloud below MSA.

[Robin Clark]

My web site at " ROBIN J CLARK - The Chinook Story (http://www.robinjclark.co.uk/page2.htm) " ..has now been updated with my suggested chinook scenario.....the photos and maps are not as large as I would like and I'm still working on that.....
...I rather expected lots of flack and PM's ...but it has been very quiet...???
regards all

[tucumseh]

Robin

Thank you for that link. I suppose I don't have a theory about what happened at the time of the crash - my own background draws me to the negligence which occurred from 1991 - May 94. But it is always interesting to read a viewpoint.


If I could just clarify two points. At bullet 3 you say;

Some electronic equipment appeared to suffer from electrical interference.......


It didn't "appear", it was a stated fact in the Release to Service document.


Also, at bullet 5 you say;

the a/c was not fitted with approved equipment for this mode of flight


I think it would be more accurate to say the kit was (probably) fitted, but was definitely NOT cleared for use. This applies equally to most Comms, EW and Nav. Again, a simple fact based on the RTS.


Both the above are significant evidence of immaturity and premature Release to Service. This links to the points you make about the crew's thoughts about using the Mk2.


Thanks again.

[John Purdey]

Robin Clark.
.....Trusting the navigation computer they could not have been aware how close they were to the lighthouse and the high ground , all obscured in the local fog...
Please enlighten us as to why on earth they anywhere near the Mull in Fog.
egards, John Purdey

[bast0n]

JP

Good question....................:ok:

[tucumseh]

Missing the point guys.

key phrase....

NOT cleared for use


Interested to know if you think those who misrepresented and/or hid this fact and falsely declared the regs had been adhered to have anything to answer for. It's a simple question but I won't hold my breath.

[flipster]

Purdey Baston

When flying at LL in Scotland, you often find youself, VMC below (clear of cloud insight of surface and with a viz of approx 1nm OUTSIDE of the nearby cloud) and flying close to the granite - not only is this allowed by Service Regs but it is expected of you to perform your duties. It is my opinion that the crew were legally flying around Mull in the weather (as described by only relevant witness - Mr Holbrook the sailor) and what is more, to acheive their duty, they had no IFR option because the aircarft and its nav systems did not comly with the airworthiness regs.
However, what no-one will ever know is why the crew could not turn the ac away from the rock face - the air marshalls' theory may be correct, so might Walt's ......but as there is an element of doubt and uncertainty, the AM's judgment cannot be allowed to stand as decreed by AP3207.

Flipster

[Chugalug2]

Robin Clark:
This did appear to be politically and financially expedient for the government at the time , and also directed embarassing questions away from other core issues....such as whether the helicopter was really 'fit for purpose' at the time of the flight.....
I think many here are united in their willingness to ascribe base motive to the government of the time and indeed to all those both before and after! That, with respect, is not the point. Just as the noble Lord Adonis has defended his own and his government's reaction last month to the Icelandic "Krakatoa" (I'm avoiding naming it just as does the Beeb!) as down to the Met Office's advice (denuded of it's spotter plane getting a fab new paint job), so too can it and its predecessors blame the Air Marshals in both the MOD and RAF for accepting an aircraft into service that they knew to be 'unfit to fly' (ie unairworthy) rather than 'unfit for purpose' as you put it.
As flipster says no-one, including the Messrs Wratten and Day, know why this aircraft crashed and your theory, for that is all it is, is as valid as any other. If you are right then this is a case of pilot error, for if 'garbage in' was indeed in-putted into the nav computer for whatever reason then it was their job to realise that they were getting 'garbage out'. It would not of course be a case of their Gross Negligence, that charge would more properly made against the Air Marshals various that colluded knowingly to force this Grossly Unairworthy type into RAF service mere months before this tragic accident.

[tucumseh]

Robin & Chug

If I may add something.

If an error was made inputting data to the RNS252 (SuperTANS) that, indeed, would be construed as a "pilot error", but not Gross Negligence; however any decent lawyer would quote the Release To Service in mitigation.

First, the RNS252 is one of the few Nav systems even mentioned in the RTS, implying (a) the rest were removed during conversion or, more likely, (b) Boscombe simply were not given the time to establish the installed performance (as required by the regs), so were correct in not mentioning the kit in their report; thus avoiding any confusion as to status. They accompanied this progress report with a clear statement that the aircraft was not to be released. Note - a progress report, not formal CA Release Recommendations, as required by Controller Aircraft (Sir Donald Spiers at the time) before he can sign the CAR. He signed anyway, the first act of Gross Negligence. That is, he ignored his own regulations (CA Instructions, the published orders taught to all aircraft and equipment project managers stating how JSP553 and other legal obligations were to be implemented), thus establishing a dangerous precedent.


Second, there is no level of clearance stated. Again, a clear breach of the same regulations. However, the RTS does, erroneously, say the RNS252 may be used but warns (MoD's highlighting);


GPS has not yet been declared operational (at Initial Operating Capability) by the US Department of Defense and accuracy is therefore not guaranteed to any level. Even when GPS is declared operational by the US (advised to aircrew AFTER the accident), accuracy of the GPS could degrade substantially without any indications to the crew. For this reason, GPS should not be used as the sole navigation aid.


The RTS then lists a raft of caveats, including "the (GPS) ERROR message is meaningless" and GPS is "highly susceptible to jamming".

It also says the accuracy of the Doppler/INS system "on trial" was "2.81% of distance travelled, overland, with a recently harmonised INS". This of course is rendered academic because (a) they had just flown over water and (b) the Doppler and INS were not cleared for use anyway! That implies the trials were incomplete when CAR and RTS were signed, and still incomplete at the time of the accident.


I don't like using car analogies, but this is akin to senior officers (CA, DGA2 and ACAS) saying "We're not going to bother ascertaining if the car works, but you are ordered to drive it anyway. Oh, and by the way, the steering doesn't work if you try to make a turn, we're not providing you with a means of knowing where you are and if you complain you will receive a career brief on your brief career". Which rather nicely sums up what we know happened.

The above is fact, but I will offer this opinion. I firmly believe the above Gross Negligence, including ACAS's act of signing the laughably non-compliant RTS in contravention of the regulations, influenced the subsequent actions of Wratten, Day and Graydon.

[Chugalug2]

Point taken tuc, and I am not trying to ascribe a 'verdict' to any legal case that might or might not finally determine the culpability or lack of it for this accident by anyone, be they junior or senior in the food chain. My point is, as an ex-pilot, that if the case that Robin puts forward was found to be a compelling one and was indeed reflected in the finding of a new BoI/ Accident Investigation/ Military Inquiry, or whatever the beast is now called, it would probably be one of pilot error. We must remember that it is 'only' an administrative finding, a verdict requiring a charge and full legal hearing by a civil or military court. Whether the kit was legal, the aircraft airworthy, or the weather tricky, it was the responsibility of the pilots to maintain VMC and to ensure the safe navigation of their aircraft. I have no doubt that is exactly what these two pilots did, until they were overwhelmed by something far more dramatic than an incorrect set of co-ordinates in the nav computer, for whatever reason. In other words you Court Martial the Senior Officers charged with the Gross Negligence that you describe but still find, by MI, the accident cause as pilot error if the facts were found to be as Robin described, rather than as I suspect. I hasten to add that this would be in accordance with the protocols as they existed some 40 years ago and, like me, could have been long since superseded by younger and more virile ones!

[bast0n]

Chugaz

it was the responsibility of the pilots to maintain VMC and to ensure the safe navigation of their aircraft. I have no doubt that is exactly what these two pilots did, until they were overwhelmed by something far more dramatic than an incorrect set of co-ordinates in the nav computer, for whatever reason

No doubt..................? Evidence would be good at this stage.

[Fitter2]

No doubt..................? Evidence would be good at this stage.

Precisely put Baston.. Exactly what was lacking to support the verdict imposed by Messrs. W&D in servile avoidance of placing the responsibility where it belonged - the criminal release to service of an unairworthy airframe.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Chugaz



No doubt..................? Evidence would be good at this stage.

Oh the irony :ok:

[BOAC]

I believe that the baston/purdey team have now taken to spamming in pairs, so I would seriously suggest not giving them the incentive to continue by replying.

Above all, despite claims of 'experience' in the past, their actual understanding of low-level operational 'practicalities' appears sadly minimal as can be seen over and over again, and the lack of a balanced requirement for 'proof' either way makes sensible discussion both frustrating - if not impossible. We leave in place, and view their comments, of course, but NB Wholigan's advice elsewhere.

[bast0n]

BOAC

There is no need to be offensive - and inaccurate.

I have stated all along that the verdict of gross negligence does not hold up. I also am of the opinion, if you bother to read my previous posts, that on the evidence that I have seen the correct verdict would have been "pilot error".

If you would care to PM me I will gladly let you know the depth of my actual understanding of low-level operational 'practicalities' and indeed any other experience that you may feel relevant.

Try not to be quite so condescending in future, there's a good chap!

[tucumseh]

Baston

I have stated all along that the verdict of gross negligence does not hold up. I also am of the opinion, if you bother to read my previous posts, that on the evidence that I have seen the correct verdict would have been "pilot error".
Indeed, this has been your consistent line; a consistency which I respect.

However, given the irrefutable evidence I outline above, which is simply lifted from MoD's own papers, would you not agree that 'Organisational Fault' (O) and 'Unsatisfactory Equipment' (UE) should have been included in any verdict?

Of course that would have meant the BoI, Wratten and Day criticising Spiers, Norriss and Bagnall, much to the dismay of Graydon. Again, the only person to emerge with credit is Captain Brougham, RN who pleaded with the above to meet their Duty of Care obligation by simply following the regulations. (Sometimes the Senior Service are worth listening to, something you will appreciate!). They refused. I will gladly amend that statement if MoD ever produce evidence that, for example, Spiers or his staffs (e.g. Norriss) ever met their obligation to advise Bagnall of Boscombe's concerns BEFORE he signed the RTS, chief among them the assertion of "positively dangerous" and "don't release to Service". Given Spiers signed the CAR, I think this highly unlikely however it is likely he acted under pressure from the RAF.

[Chugalug2]

bast0n:
No doubt..................? Evidence would be good at this stage.
Well wouldn't it? It would have been even better some 15 years ago when it was suppressed/withheld/ignored/adulterated (select your preference). I was merely making the point that the accident may well have been down to pilot error. You think it was, I think it wasn't. Neither of us can prove our case or disprove the other now. It is probable that we never could. What can be proved, providing the investigation is thorough and independent, is the case that tuc puts, that the Chinook HC2 was forced into service with the RAF in contravention of the UK Military Airworthiness Regulations and that consequently ZD576 was Grossly Unairworthy when it crashed onto the Mull of Kintyre. That is very relevant IMHO and if proven opens up the possibility of criminal charges being laid against those involved in that act and the subsequent cover up. As you say, evidence would be good at that stage and I trust could be forthcoming.

[chevvron]

I still think a contributory cause was the fact there was no low level radar coverage available in this area thus enabling the crew the option of flying in IMC at a safe altitude. This was due to the withdrawl of radar and hence a possible LARS service from Macrihanish about a month prior to the accident although Macrihanish did not close for some time after the accident.
Part of the blame should therefore fall on the senior officer who authorised the premature withdrawl of the radar.

[John Purdey]

BOAC. ......their actual understanding of low-level operational 'practicalities' appears sadly minimal Please yourself, but that is not what my logbook tells me! JP

[MrBernoulli]

chevvron,

The aircraft's lack of a suitable IFR (IMC?) clearance is one of the factors at the root of this accident.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

BOAC. ......their actual understanding of Rotary low-level operational 'practicalities' appears sadly minimal Please yourself, but that is not what my logbook tells me! JP

Might have been a better way of making the point.

[bast0n]

Seldom - hullo again!

their actual understanding of Rotary low-level operational 'practicalities' appears sadly minimal

Well my several thousand pennies worth were all rotary, and mostly low level - does this make me a bad chap?:ok:

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Seldom - hullo again!



Well my several thousand pennies worth were all rotary, and mostly low level - does this make me a bad chap?:ok:

Apologies Sir, your expertise is a given and my comment was not aimed at you :ok:

[Abbey Road]

Right, with any luck, we can perhaps look forward to some good news on this subject. Didn't David Cameron promise that he would look into getting this monstrous injustice overturned once he became Prime Minister? I certainly hope so.

[PPRuNe Pop]

You can take a bet that a certain BEagle will contact his 'friend' at a time when he deems it appropriate.

[John Purdey]

Abbey Wood. I thought that Cameron's last comment on the case was that he would appoint a High Cort judge to examine the whole matter. Will someone corrct me? JP

[BEagle]

Here's what DC wrote in his last letter:

(.......)

Although an extensive Board of Enquiry was conducted by senior RAF officers into the tragic loss of the Chinook, there have been a number of significant concerns raised about the findings of the Board.

As you may know, the Fatal Accident Inquiry held in Paisley, the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords Select Committee, have all rejected the findings of gross negligence by the RAF Board of Inquiry against Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook.

Given the public concern about the Board of Inquiry findings of gross negligence against the pilots, the Conservatives believe that the matter cannot rest there. Accordingly, we have committed to undertaking a review if we win the forthcoming General Election, a move which is supported by the then Secretary of State for Defence, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, and the then Minister of State, James Arbuthnot.

(..........)

Yours sincerely,

David Cameron

Oh and JP,Will someone corrct me? JP People have been trying to do that for years.....

I will be e-mailing David later to congratulate him on becoming the new PM - and reminding him I told him he'd be PM several years ago now! I will also mention that I look forward to him delivering on his promise, but recognise that now may not be quite the time as he has more urgent matters to deal with first.

[ExGrunt]

@Beagle

I will also mention that I look forward to him delivering on his promise, but recognise that now may not be quite the time as he has more urgent matters to deal with first.

For once I will disagree with you. This is exactly the time for this as it fits squarely with the new open, fair etc world we are now to inhabit.

The various families have waited long enough. If this new government means what it says then this is precisely the sort of issue to be addressed now.

Regards

EG

[Fitter2]

My heart agrees with ExGrunt.

My head says, lets be practical - a few more weeks will make no real difference to this, but the mess the countries finances are in needs attention right now, and a full government also needs putting properly in place.

In a month or so, then a gentle reminder of this commitment would be appropriate.

And BEAgle, nicely put to JP - I thought the same.......

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Quote:Will someone corrct me? JP

People have been trying to do that for years.....

:D:D:D:D:D

[John Purdey]

My apologies, and no snide comments are called for!; I see that in this latest letter to BEAgle the new PM had undertaken to 'review' the case; I seem to recall that he had originally promised to 'overturn' the verdict. Am I still mistaken? Regards. JP

[endplay]

I was curious so I searched.

The PM-in-waiting, David Cameron, has just written to me in response to my direct question asking him what he will do when he takes office after the inevitable demise of Noo Labour. He writes:

"Thank you for your further e-mail about the Chinook accident. I can understand and appreciate your concerns with regards to the verdict.

This is a longstanding issue and has been the subject of an Opposition Day debate.

I also signed EDM 651 on this issue (he included the text of the EDM at this point)

The House of Lords Select Committee report unanimously concluded that the reviewing officers were not justified in finding that negligence on the part of the pilots caused the aircraft to crash.

I believe now that the only honourable course for the Government is to reinstate the reputations of the two brave young pilots who lost their lives. As I see it, the Lords Select Committee confirms that there was a miscarriage of justice.

Thank you again for writing to me about this.

(DC)

I shall now e-mail DC to thank him for his reply - and to ask whether he will make it an urgent priority of his government to take the "only honourable course" of which he writes.


(me again) That seems to be a fairly unequivocal statement, assuming that is, that the word "honourable" hasn't been redefined in our new political world. Perhaps we should have courted Nick Clegg over this issue as I'm sure he could have slipped this in as a condition of the coalition. We live in hope that right will prevail.

[BEagle]

If you're going to quote from other peoples' posts, please use the 'quote' feature....

For anyone tempted to write to David, pleaase observe the normal etiquette of writing to your own MP, not direct to the PM!

Just back in the country, so will be e-mailing my MP, the PM, tomorrow.

[Abbey Road]

John Purdey, the name is 'Abbey Road', not 'Abbey Wood'. Thank you.

[John Purdey]

Abbey Road. Sorry about that! JP

[Thor Nogson]

Perhaps we should have courted Nick Clegg over this issue as I'm sure he could have slipped this in as a condition of the coalition. We live in hope that right will prevail.

FYI, The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP also signed EDM 651, but it appears that our new Defence secretary did not.

TN

[endplay]

No offense meant BEagle, can you tell me how?

[vecvechookattack]

No offense meant BEagle, can you tell me how?

Place your cursor over the start of the sentence you want to quote and hold down the left key....... drag it until you reach the end of where you want to stop the copy. Right click and select COPY

Hit the Post Reply button

You will find that above the text box there is a row of icons ranging from the left BOLD ITALICS etc.....

Third from the right is an Icon that looks like a speech bubble. Select that and then paste your selection inside of the quotes....

Hey Presto

[BEagle]

What he said!

And here's some information concerning Dr Fox's position:

Of the Chinook accident, Jamie McGrigor, Conservative Highlands and Islands MSP, says: ‘I well remember this terrible tragedy in 1994 which killed 29 people and shocked the people of Argyll to the core. Many were never happy with the MOD’s handling of events thereafter’.

Pointing out that: ‘Obviously this is a matter reserved to Westminster’, Jamie McGrigor has contacted the Conservative Shadow Defence Secretary, the Rt Hon Liam Fox MP.

Dr Fox came up with the fact that that the recently published Hadden-Cove report on the Nimrod crash sets an appropriate precedent. He has said to Jamie McGrigor that he feels it is time now to put this matter (the 1994 Kintyre Chinook crash) to rest and to try to establish the truth of what happened with an independent inquiry.

If the Conservative party wins the next general election they have now committed to launching such an independent inquiry which, as Jamie McGrigor says: ‘ will hopefully finally clear the brave pilots of any negligence’.

I have now e-mailed DC as follows:
Dear David,

Many, many congratulations on having been elected to become our Prime Minister. A great honour both for you, your family and your constituents!

Although you will undoubtedly have more urgent matters of national importance to tackle over the next few weeks and months, might I remind you that you promised to re-examine the tragedy of the Chinook accident on the Mull of Kintyre. I hope that you will be able to move forward on your promise as soon as occasions permit and look forward to a long overdue resolution to the whole matter.

Again, my warmest congratulations - and didn't I tell you several years ago that you would undoubtedly become Prime Minister?

Best wishes to you and your family,

(BEagle)

[flipster]

Thanks Beagle - keep us posted pse.

Been away sorry, so if these comments hark back a bit, my apols.

Robin's most recent theory is welcomed but, like all others (including D&W, Walt's ...and mine), nowt but conjecture.

While he does point out the fact that the crew did not have an IFR option because of navigtion and engine system limitations, Robin's description of the in-flight visibility is what causes me most concern - if only for the fact we have absolutely no idea of the in-flight visibility!

In this respect, what tips it for many is that the yachtsman (who could clearly see the ac) confirmed they had reasonable visibility (rocks/beach, NI coast and Skanda), the cloud was confined to the actual slopes of the mull and the ac was described as in sunlight, below the higher-level cloud. While the sequence of events and conditions that Robin describes are possibilities, they are only that - possibilities - hardly sufficient 'evidence'? However, my experience of that area (and others on the west coast of the UK) leads me to believe the ac was probably clear of cloud, in sight of surface, VMC below and with a visibility of 1nm or greater in the moments leading up the final impact. What no-one can answer is why the crew did not turn away from the clearly-visible, cloud-blanketed mull. That said, there are plenty enough possibilities for this lack of turn - some even listed by the AAIB; which the BOI chose to play down or ignore.

In all this there is doubt, plenty of doubt. For that reason alone the Air Marshalls failed in their duies to follow the mandated regulations of AP3207 and QRs.

As for airworthiness, the MoD's case is riddled with multiple cases of non-compliance, negligence and failures, possibly even right up to Controller Aircraft and his minions. Whilst with a pair of 'big picture' glasses on, I can see they were stuck between a rock and a hard place but what they have done since the crash is nothing but unforgiveable. Their actions could be seen as duplicitous, two-faced, obfuscating and cowardly and, ultimately, they have allowed 2 innocents to take the blame for their higher-level errors; not good leadership or honour? These AMs deserve all that is coming to them because if the politicians do not get their act together, the courts will have Spiers, Norriss, Bagnall, Day and Wratten for breakfast. In fact, these men (I won't call them gentlemen) have tarnished the good name of the RAF and it is difficult to see how they could retain the slightest vestige of credibility within the circles in which they move. I would hope that many on this forum would not be sad to see them exposed even if the BOI verdict is overturned.

Of course, that will never happen but.......

'they know that we know that they porked it and covered it up'

- which may have to suffice.

flipster

[BEagle]

...the courts will have Spiers, Norriss, B******, Day and Wratten for breakfast.

Mine's a large Scotch please, flipster....

There is a code, you know!

[flipster]

Beags,

C'est une gendarme blonde!

f

[John Purdey]

Flipster".............it is difficult to see how they could remain in the Upper House." Have I missed something? JP

[flipster]

JP

Sorry, you are, of course, correct - whataloadatosh; edited accordingly. I'd spent too much time on DeBretts, confusing Sirs and Lords.

f

[BEagle]

flipster, the closest equivalent to the enforced removal of a lord from the Upper House would, for a knight, probably be to strip him of his knighthood....:uhoh:

[Wander00]

Happened to (Sir) Jack Lyons (Guiness affair) and (Sir) Anthony Blunt

[flipster]

Not moving in such circles (nor understanding them, nor caring 2 figs about them), what you suggest does sound a rather appropriate level of censure - if Sirs various had been found to have been negligent in their duties and had blamed others instead. Wishful thinking maybe?

[meadowbank]

Can someone plse explain how to post a photo as part of my message?

MB

[Fitter2]

Can someone plse explain how to post a photo as part of my message?
mb - see your pMs

F2

[meadowbank]

Many on this thread seem to have been confused by the weather conditions pertaining on the day of the accident. The confusion seems to revolve around the apparent impossibility of a helicopter flying around VMC in close proximity to the "Fog" described by the lighthouse keeper at the crash-site.

I don't really want to start another round of discussion on the subject, but took this photo a year or two ago, whilst flying just off the East coast of Ireland,looking towards the South West (so quite relevant to the Mull of Kintyre, where the same kind of situation frequently occurs).

Notice that it is easy to see the line of the coast where the cloud starts and that even flying 100m away from the edge of the cloud, along the line of the coast, would be perfectly safe, as the cloud edge is so well-defined and the visibility is perfectly OK.

I believe this photo demonstrates, once and for all, that, assuming the crew's intention, having changed the TANS waypoint, was to follow the (easily visible) line of the coast, it would take something to go wrong with the aircraft for them to enter the orographic cloud and crash into the hillside. It also demonstrates how the yachtsman and the lighthouse keeper could have such differing views of the weather.

Let's have no more comments along the lines of "The lighthouse keeper said the hillside was in fog, they crashed into the hillside, were therefore flying IMC and were therefore negligent" - that logic simply doesn't work as even the daftest pilot on the planet would not have deliberately flown into cloud such as that in the photo, when there was so much clear air around in which to remain. I hope this changes a few minds.

http://i45.tinypic.com/16gmskh.jpg

[BOAC]

MB - a good post, but I fear you are posting to:-

A) Those who know and understand low-flying weather conditions
B) The intransigent who don't

The opinions of neither will be influenced by the picture. Sad but true in the case of B

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Meadowbank,

I fully with BOAC, but would go slightly further and state that without a sound working knowledge of Rotary low level Op's it is always going to be a big ask for some to grasp what is being suggested with this verdict :(

[BOAC]

Quite agree, SFFP, but the cloud in that particular picture would not cause more than a moment's thought at any speed, 140kts, 420kts or 540kts.

Before one of the gainsayers points it out, of course we all recognise that the weather 'they' experienced was not as 'nice' as in that picture, but the learning points remain.

What is so odd is the the R O's, who were 'low-level' experienced, should come to such a bizarre conclusion on in-flight conditions with no supporting evidence. On second thoughts, perhaps it really is 'not so odd'?

[Chugalug2]

BOAC:
What is so odd is the the R O's, who were 'low-level' experienced, should come to such a bizarre conclusion on in-flight conditions with no supporting evidence. On second thoughts, perhaps it really is 'not so odd'?
What I find odd is that some who post here, despite testimony from those involved in the airworthiness process as to how it was suborned by Air Rank officers to the extent that this aircraft was known by those very senior officers to have been Grossly Unairworthy from RTS until it crashed, killing all 29 occupants, seem to still accept the bizarre finding of W&D that nonetheless the pilots were the ones who were Grossly Negligent! If such a process had been carried out by Junior Officers against their subordinates they would no doubt be the first ones to denounce such a cowardly misuse of power, and rightly so. Droit du Seigneur, perhaps?

[Cows getting bigger]

Sticking with photos, this is one I took of the Mull a few weeks back (sorry for the quality - iPhone :uhoh: ). Anyway, you can just about make out the high ground immediately to the left of the Mull (quarter left) and the coastline to the South but the area of the lighthouse is covered in low cloud. You must bear in mind that this picture was taken from about 15nm away and everywhere else had fantastic visibility. As meadowbank implies, this type of localised cloud/mist/fog is quite common in the Irish Sea.

http://i48.tinypic.com/n1usmc.jpg

[PPRuNe Pop]

Please re-post the above photograph at our required size of 850x850 OR 850x750.

Thanks.

PPP

[Cows getting bigger]

Sorry :ouch:

[vecvechookattack]

I believe this photo demonstrates, once and for all, that, assuming the crew's intention, having changed the TANS waypoint, was to follow the (easily visible) line of the coast, it would take something to go wrong with the aircraft for them to enter the orographic cloud and crash into the hillside.

Or of course they could have been lost.

[Fitter2]

Or of course they could have been lost.

Or they could have been captured by Martians and destroyed by a death ray.

But not beyond all possible doubt................

[tucumseh]

Or of course they could have been lost.

Not entirely impossible, given the almost complete lack of clearances for the Nav Systems. Back to Spiers and Bagnall again.............

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Or they could have been a competent crew flying a serviceable aircraft who negligently failed to maintain VFR


My thoughts as well Olive, they could well have, but as none of us actually know what happened or why it happened could would seem to apply to any of the suggested scenarios :ok:

[BOAC]

Would vecve and olive accept that they ALL could have been the victims of an unwise and premature RTS of an inadequate aircraft?

[Jumping_Jack]

:ok:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10164822.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10164822.stm)

[tucumseh]

Or they could have been a competent crew flying a serviceable aircraft who negligently failed to maintain VFR

1. MoD confirmed they were competent.

2. Evidence supplied by MoD confirms unserviceabilities in the aircraft and, more damningly, that a key component was considered positively dangerous. (Something that is dangerous, by definition, cannot pass a valid serviceability test, as that test cannot be approved until the design and installation of the unit under test is first proven safe. By MoD's own admission, that last had not been achieved).

3. Ditto, MoD confirms most of the Nav system was not cleared to ANY level, which learned pilots tell me makes a transition to IFR a somewhat dodgy proposition.



I see Menzies Campbell has kept HIS promise. I do hope Cameron keeps his. Either way, the above MoD statements will be held against them.

Also, I hope Sir Donald Spiers will be invited to explain why he completely ignored HIS OWN mandatory instructions (CA Instructions) and signed a fabricated CA Release. And ACM Bagnall will, similarly, be asked why he agreed to accept such a CAR, given the regulations required him to make a written acceptance before he signed the RTS.

In a fair world, that should take about 10 minutes, swiftly followed by a hasty climbdown by MoD and knocks on several doors. (The Provost Marshall is already busy dealing with lesser offences on Nimrod but I'm sure Strathclyde Police will gladly help).

[flipster]

Write to your own MP insisting on their support for a full, independent and legally binding review that the MoD cannot this time ignore.

[Chugalug2]

Good call, flip. You can write to your MP here:
TheyWorkForYou.com: Are your MPs and Peers working for you in the UK's Parliament? Hansard++ (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/)
My twopenneth:
Dear Chug's MP,
I was delighted to see here BBC News - Ministry of Defence considers Chinook crash review (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10164822.stm)
that Sir Menzies Campbell MP has urged the SoS for Defence, Dr Liam Fox MP, to announce a review into the crash of Chinook Mk2 ZD576 on 2June1994 on the Mull of Kintyre that killed all 29 occupants. Given that the RAF Board of Inquiry at the time found that the aircraft was airworthy and that evidence since is that it was not, in company with all other Chinook Mk2's that were Released to Service over the urgent protestations of the Boscombe Down Test Pilots immediately prior to this tragedy , and that the finding of the Air Marshals Wratten and Day that the pilots were Grossly Negligent (based on no direct evidence whatsoever) was in direct contravention of RAF procedures governing such findings concerning deceased aircrew, I hope that you would also urge the SoS to initiate such a review at the earliest opportunity. A campaign against this 16 year old monstrous injustice has called for the reputations of the pilots, Flt Lts Jonathon Tapper and Richard Cook to be restored by overturning the Air Marshals' finding. Once that has happened an investigation into the Gross Unairworthiness of the Chinook Mk2 fleet at that time should follow, for it was in my view a far worse example of how the MOD reneged on its duty of care by flouting its own airworthiness regulations than was even the Nimrod, already the subject of a damning review by Mr Haddon-Cave QC.


Yours sincerely,
Chugalug2

[airsound]

Channel 4 News, which has always given the story a fair wind, says the inquiry is confirmed.
Officials confirm Chinook crash review - Channel 4 News (http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/officials+confirm+chinook+crash+review/3660562)

Result!.... Let's hope so.

airsound

[airsound]

I'm working on getting the record of what Fox actually said. It's not available yet, but a very nice lady at Hansard is working on it......

airsound

Just noticed that my version of this says it came out at 1218. Actually, it was 2018. Are we on California time?

[airsound]

OK, here's the Hansard record (and my thanks to them for being really helpful) My bold towards the end
1.43 pm

Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD): I think that we rather enjoyed the leadership speech by the former Foreign Secretary.......
In the time now available to me I shall deal with two issues; I will, perforce, do so rather more briefly than I had intended. The first is an issue from the past. It concerns the crash of a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June 1994, when all the passengers and all the crew were killed. It was a terrible and tragic event, but with an additional dimension in that the passengers were the civilian and military heads of intelligence in Northern Ireland. The consequence of that event was to prejudice very considerably our efforts at a time in the Province before the Good Friday agreement, when things were by no means easy. The two pilots—Flight Lieutenant Cook and Flight Lieutenant Tapper—were found to have been guilty of negligence. However, it is forcefully argued by many people that the evidence available failed to meet the very high standard necessary before such a finding could be made, under the Royal Air Force’s own regulations.

It is sometimes thought that to seek to reopen this matter is to imply bad faith on the part of the senior officers of the Royal Air Force who were ultimately responsible for the board of inquiry. Let me dissociate myself from that completely and say that I believe that they all acted in good faith. Nevertheless, I believe that an error was made. There have been two external inquiries: a fatal accident inquiry in Scotland under Sheriff Sir Stephen Young—now Sheriff Principal Sir Stephen Young—and a special Select Committee of the House of Lords under the chairmanship of Lord Jauncey, a distinguished former Scottish judge. Both inquiries reached the same conclusion—that the evidence did not justify the verdict. That is why I urge the Defence Secretary to consider, by whatever means appropriate, a review of that decision. Indeed, I have already written to him in those terms, and I sent him a copy of my letter before I came into the Chamber.

Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con): Does my right hon. and learned Friend share my pleasure that the Prime Minister himself, before he became Prime Minister, said:

“the Conservatives believe that the matter cannot rest there. Accordingly, we have committed to undertaking a review”?

Does he agree that such a review has to be independent of the Ministry of Defence for it to carry any weight?

Sir Menzies Campbell: I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. Over the years he and I, along with many others in both Houses, have sought to persuade the previous Government, and indeed the Government before that, to undertake such a review. On one occasion we met Prime Minister Blair. I very much hope that this Administration will feel compelled to deal with something that many people believe has, inadvertently, caused an injustice that should be put right. If this Chamber is anything, it is surely a place for the redress of grievance.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox): For the sake of clarification, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) is correct to say that in opposition we said there would be an independent review of the evidence, and I can confirm that the Ministry of Defence is already considering the best way to undertake that. We will certainly live up to the promise that we made in opposition.

Sir Menzies Campbell: I am grateful to the Defence Secretary for that intervention, and for his undertaking.

So, not a fully confirmed inquiry, but a reiterated promise.

The MoD is not planning to release a press statement at this stage. There's a surprise, then

airsound

[tucumseh]

Would vecve and olive accept that they ALL could have been the victims of an unwise and premature RTS of an inadequate aircraft?
No.


What new evidence do you have that would suggest the RTS was in any way compliant or the aircraft sufficiently mature to warrant a claim that it was airworthy?

[Tandemrotor]

An independent inquiry!

On the face of it, great news. Probably the best single announcement in 16 years of campaigning!

Just a reminder if I may: Every single 'independent' review of the 'facts' (as they are) of this case, has found the 'evidence' does not support a finding of negligence against the pilots. There simply is insufficient relevant information!

In total contrast, the mechanical maturity of the HC2 at that time, is now beyond question!

We may now be entering the home straight. What has always hinged on matters of opinion, will now hopefully be assessed on matters of fact!

Let right be done.

(Yet again, I am reminded of the Air New Zealand accident on Mount Eribus)

[Chugalug2]

An independent inquiry? The Nimrod Review was 'independent' but was 'assisted' by the MOD. Result being just two relative juniors in the food-chain fed to the wolves and a recommendation to create a Military Aviation Authority. That MAA was to be 'independent' of the MOD, yet a part of it at the same time! I'm afraid that the MOD's definition of 'independent' is somewhat at variance to that in common parlance. I suspect that this 'independent' inquiry will be similarly limited, indeed recommending that W&D's finding be quashed but that any airworthiness lessons have already been learned from H-C and taken care of. I would disagree with that and call for a truly independent inquiry separated entirely from the MOD, ie rather like the MAA should be. Self regulation never works and in aviation it kills!

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

No.

And of course my post 6448 should be edited to correctly read: They were a competent crew..... but I was following the style of previous posts using the phrase "could have" to make the point that not everyone here goes along with the various conspiracy theories posted here, especially the one labelled "airworthiness".

Olive,

If we set the airworthiness issue to one side

"Or, they were a competent crew flying a serviceable aircraft who could have negligently failed to maintain VFR"

What do you think, sounds more factually correct when written in that way :ok:

[cazatou]

Seldom

Perhaps you have not read the findings of the Investigating BOI - they were quite specific that the forecast weather would have required flight in accordance with IFR in the vicinity of the Mull. The actual observed weather at the Mull was considerably worse than the forecast weather - yet the aircraft average groundspeed from the radar fix on leaving Belfast CTZ until impact was 158 kts. In this respect you may recall that the AAIB assessment of the aircraft speed at impact was "approx 150 kts" whilst attempting an escape manouvre.

One other interesting point is that if the Chinook did slow down to an IAS of between "60-80 kts" (as described by the Yachtsman) then it would have had to have exceeded Vne at some stage of the transit in order to have achieved the known parameters prior to impact.

[tucumseh]

Perhaps you have not read the findings of the Investigating BOI - they were quite specific that the forecast weather would have required flight in accordance with IFR in the vicinity of the Mull. The actual observed weather at the Mull was considerably worse than the forecast weather - yet the aircraft average groundspeed from the radar fix on leaving Belfast CTZ until impact was 158 kts. In this respect you may recall that the AAIB assessment of the aircraft speed at impact was "approx 150 kts" whilst attempting an escape manouvre.


I imagine that a fair and independent inqury would ask the BoI to reconsider ALL their comments and findings in light of the fact (advised by MoD) that most of the aircraft systems necessary to execute the manoeuvres you mention were NOT CLEARED for use; and that a safety critical system had been declared "positively dangerous". I don't think the BoI members sought or were given this information, but I know at least one of them was informed a couple of years later. By now, of course, all know the truth so I look forward to their comments.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Seldom

Perhaps you have not read the findings of the Investigating BOI - they were quite specific that the forecast weather would have required flight in accordance with IFR in the vicinity of the Mull. The actual observed weather at the Mull was considerably worse than the forecast weather - yet the aircraft average groundspeed from the radar fix on leaving Belfast CTZ until impact was 158 kts. In this respect you may recall that the AAIB assessment of the aircraft speed at impact was "approx 150 kts" whilst attempting an escape manouvre.

One other interesting point is that if the Chinook did slow down to an IAS of between "60-80 kts" (as described by the Yachtsman) then it would have had to have exceeded Vne at some stage of the transit in order to have achieved the known parameters prior to impact.

Even a mere tea boy like me knows that there is huge difference between forecast and actual weather, forecast to be raining here now but just going outside in flip flops, shorts and sun glasses to cut the grass.

Actual observed as by whom :confused: Surely the only actual observed that has any meaning in this instance would be that of those on the flight deck :=

As has been suggested by others those with no actual experience of SH low level OP's are always going to be very poorly placed when discussing this incident.

[Fitter2]

Perhaps you have not read the findings of the Investigating BOI

Well Caz, in view of all the other matters that the BOI was misinformed about, it would not be surprising if they got that finding wrong too. What they didn't get wrong, although two senior officers overruled them, was to blame the crew.

However, assuming there will be a truly independant enquiry in possession of all the facts (suppressed at the time) that have emerged since, a more accurate verdict may be arrived at, and blame properly apportioned.

I am sure the Provost Marshal will take a close interest in the proceedings.

[Tandemrotor]

cazatou (K52)

No doubt opinions such as yours will be presented by those representing the MOD at any future inquiry. In all independent inquiries thus far, their veracity has fallen somewhat short of any recognised standard of proof, never mind the standard quite properly required in these matters!

In other words, matters of 'opinion' are not matters of 'fact'. 'Assumptions' should never be confused with 'evidence'! :=

cazatou (K52)

Having re-read your post:

yet the aircraft average groundspeed from the radar fix on leaving Belfast CTZ
I should be very grateful if you would be kind enough to point me in the direction of the evidence specifying a radar fix, linked to an accurate time check, when the aircraft left the Belfast CTZ.

It's just that I can't recall that specifically linked 'evidence'.

Or indeed:
the AAIB assessment of the aircraft speed at impact was "approx 150 kts" whilst attempting an escape manouvre.

An escape manouvre?? Would that opinion be based on some recording? Or is it simply an assumption? One that (I may be wrong, but) I can't recall "the AAIB" making??

Though I confess one can indeed make a persuasive case when one corrupts the 'facts'!

I'm obliged.

[walter kennedy]

Tandem Rotor wrote:
<<I should be very grateful if you would be kind enough to point me in the direction of the evidence specifying a radar fix, linked to an accurate time check, when the aircraft left the Belfast CTZ. >>
Well there was another fixed point not so far from the ATC fix that is known accurately (the exact position and the exact time);
due to the lack of confidence at the time in the nav systems with a gps component, they had done what was common practice at the time – they overflew a known feature not long after takeoff and did a fix.
Racal were misleading (in their report) in describing the fix on the waypoint V813 (from memory just now) as the “initialising” or “initialisation” fix;
it was actually the last operator input fix found in the recovered data from the SuperTANS and was not made on the apron at Aldergrove but a couple of miles on their way along the 027 track, and the use of this fix in analysis gave the same result as the ATC fix, dist/time wise;
again, there was some misleading by the ATC witness who described the position as 7 nmiles (all this from memory just now) along the 027 radial from the Belfast VOR – of course this was no where near as anyone has been to Aldergrove could tell you – the apron at Aldergrove is significantly removed from the VOR site – however, they had held 027 mag (at the time) from the apron to the position of waypoint change (near the Mull) and the displacement of the ATC fix did not alter the dist/time calcs significantly.


Yet again a point on this forum illustrates that inadequate analysis by both authorities and interested parties (eg Mull group) leaves understanding of the basics of this crash far short of where it should have been years ago, let alone today.
Further to the analysis aspect, an important deficiency became apparent in the processes of investigation used by the authorities for a politically sensitive crash – that was that civil authorities were overly dependent upon the RAF for information on the aircraft's systems and pertinent operational procedures such that it was apparently easy for the RAF to obfuscate where it wanted equipment and procedures to remain out of the public domain – clearly an interested civil authority needed to have assembled a small team (comprising, say, pilots and civilians with navigation systems backgrounds) prior to an inquiry to better understand the full range of navigation systems available and the evidence with respect to the a/c's navigation, to establish as far as possible what was apparently happening prior to the crash, and to better generate pertinent questions and allow those questions be pressed home in the inquiry – for example, no inquiry could have been regarded as comprehensive without knowledge of the existence and usage of two systems (CPLS and the VHF Homer) capable of aiding local navigation.
That the crash happened in a training area but this was not noticeably emphasised nor considered together with that it was not disclosed that this a/c was fitted with a significant piece of local navigation equipment whose exercise in this area was of obvious merit and whose use analysis predicted must surely be sufficient to justify a new inquiry.

[flipster]

Once the Government have decided on the format of this Inquiry (hopefully, carried out by the best legal minds in the country, well removed from the MoD and legally binding), then I suggest that all parties with a valid point of view and worthwhile input should be encouraged to submit their thoughts to the Inquiry.
It may take a while but, with our help, the truth will eventually out and the pilots' names will be cleared.

[John Purdey]

Posters such as Dalek (5301), Chugalug (5216), and others have in the past alleged that:
1. This Mk of Chinook was put into service when it was not fit for such service.
2. The RAF hierachy (that is to say CAS, CinC, AOC, and their staffs) knew full well that it was not fit to enter service but nevertheless insisted that it be flown.
3. When the Chinook crashed into the Mull, the heirachy decided to blame two innocent pilots in order to conceal their own failings.
4. This view was supported by the Air, Flight Safety, Engineer and Legal Saffs at Group, Command, AFB and MOD levels

Perhaps all those who hold that view will now be prepared to make themselves available to the forthcoming Inquiry, under their real identities of course, and produce their evidence.
I cannot wait. Regards John Purdey

[flipster]

JP
I don't suppose it will be long now - I can't wait either!

[dalek]

Cazatou,
Here we go again. The Mull lighthouse was in fog. No doubt.
The weather approaching the Mull was legal VMC, both on forecast and actual. ( Mr Holbrook, best evidence.). Weather at crash site? Who knows?
A radar fix is agricultural, good to a couple of miles at best. How precise was the timecheck to go with it?
We know the crash position. How precise was the time of impact? I bet you are using that "certified ADR", the TANS again.
Even if you have the precise figures for the above, all you can establish is accurate groundspeed.
You tell us time and time again you are an A1 pilot. Then you must understand that VNE has nothing to do with groundspeed.
Yet again you can only be basing your latest slur on the crew by taking forecast conditions as actual facts. Nobody knows the exact temperature(s), density(s) and wind velocity(s) encountered by the crew during that transit.

[tucumseh]

John Purdey

Posters such as Dalek (5301), Chugalug (5216), and others have in the past alleged that:
1. This Mk of Chinook was put into service when it was not fit for such service.
2. The RAF hierachy (that is to say CAS, CinC, AOC, and their staffs) knew full well that it was not fit to enter service but nevertheless insisted that it be flown.
3. When the Chinook crashed into the Mull, the heirachy decided to blame two innocent pilots in order to conceal their own failings.
4. This view was supported by the Air, Flight Safety, Engineer and Legal Saffs at Group, Command, AFB and MOD levels

Perhaps all those who hold that view will now be prepared to make themselves available to the forthcoming Inquiry, under their real identities of course, and produce their evidence.
I cannot wait. Regards John Purdey


As I have said before to you,

You will be aware 1. and 2. are now established facts following MoD's (perhaps inadvertent) release of key documents which they had withheld from all previous inquiries. (A serious offence).

On point 3. there is no doubt the RAF hierarchy blamed the pilots. It is also beyond doubt that, if the above documents and facts had been known to the inquiry teams, said senior officers would have faced severe censure, if not legal action. Deliberately misrepresenting the facts and issuing a fabricated CAR and RTS, thereby knowingly endangering aircrew, is a serious offence.

On point 4, I cannot speak for all these departments but, for example, the record shows the MoD(PE) Project Director pleaded with his bosses to take heed of Boscombe's advice that the aircraft should not be declared airworthy. I also understand the formal legal advice was against the gross negligence verdict. If "Flight Safety" or "Engineering" signed up to a decision to ignore Boscombe's "positively dangerous" advice, then I would describe that as criminal. It is far more likely that they were not told; just as the BoI, HofL, HofC, Sheriff and, most importantly, the aircrew, were not.

I say again, so that you are absolutely clear on this point, the documents demonstrating this have been freely released under Freedom of Information by the MoD - they have not been "leaked" in any sense. Many were referred to at every inquiry but, for whatever reason, their significance was not understood or explained. As stated by flipster, many are now eagerly anticipating ensuring this evidence is heard in a proper forum. Some very fine legal minds will now be well aware of the issues resulting in the Haddon-Cave's report, whereas before it was rather assumed MoD met their legal obligations.

Equally, those MoD staffs called to give evidence will now be very hesitant about lying to protect those few responsible for the above; primarily because a significant precedent has been set whereby legal and disciplinary action is being taken against those who ignore their Duty of Care; but also because discussion forums such as this have readily disseminated the available evidence making it more difficult for MoD to dissemble. The argument is essentially that which won the day on both Nimrod and Hercules.
Again, thank you for reminding us of the facts. May we look forward to YOU offering YOUR interpretation of the regulations? That, indeed, would be a pleasure because, so far, you have only rubbished the long experience of individuals here without offering an alternative view on how these senior staffs (CA and ACAS) should have exercised their delegated authority.

[deeceethree]

JP,

The haughty disdain with which you hold your position has been obvious in every post you have made here. Many, including myself, are left with the distinct impression that you have much to lose by the steadily mounting evidence that has gathered in favour of overturning the insulting verdict imposed by those supposedly knowledgeable RAF senior officers. And that steadily mounting evidence is now likely to get the proper, full airing it always should have had.
Perhaps all those who hold that view will now be prepared to make themselves available to the forthcoming Inquiry, under their real identities of course, and produce their evidence.
I cannot wait.It is absolutely certain that many of "those who hold that view will now be prepared to make themselves available to the forthcoming Inquiry". That is why this thread came in to being, and has continued to exist for so long - because many, many good people feel it is imperative to right a monumental wrong.

How about you JP? Will you make yourself available? Will you be prepared to publicly justify your supercilious position? :rolleyes:

[John Purdey]

Tuc. I hear what you say about the regulations, but that is not what I was discussing. My point deals only with the allegation that the CinC, AOC and staffs decided to blame the pilots in order to conceal their own failings. Please stick to the point.

deeceethree. Invective does not help, please see the above and say whether you agree with that specific allegation.
With kind regards, JP

[deeceethree]

Invective? You should see me when I am angry ........ the CinC, AOC and staffs decided to blame the pilots in order to conceal their own failings.Yes, I believe that some or all of them must have done so. That is what a proper inquiry, with all the evidence that can be mustered in one place, will hopefully find out, resulting in the restoration of the reputation of the Chinook crew. And should the guilty parties at various levels of the MoD, RAF and elsewhere have to face censure or whatever for their disgraceful behaviour, hurrah!

[BEagle]

Chaps,

There are 2 distinct aspects to this whole sorry business:

1. There was insufficient cause for Wratten and Day to pin their finding of Gross Negligence on the 2 pilots.
2. Various senior people allegedly ran roughshod over their own airworthiness regulations whilst trying to bring the HC2 into service.

Now, one might consider that 2 may well have been instrumental in the accident, but most folk simply accept that confirmation of 1 is the more important. An independent judicial inquiry should resolve 1 fairly quickly, but would probably then lead to an in-depth investigation of 2 as more and more stones are turned over.

I feel strongly that 1 should be settled first - and quickly. Then 2 can be considered at length - but assuredly not just by some internal MoD inquiry.

[vecvechookattack]

I happen to agree with Beagle here. The finding of Gross negligence must be the first hurdle to overcome.

If (big If) the Gross negligence finding was overturned in favour of a "Pilot error" finding - would that satisfy ?

[Boslandew]

Just a query.

SFFP suggests that only the crew would have known what the weather was at the crash site.

Dalek says "Weather at the crash site. Who knows?

Some nine or ten witnesses actually on the Mull including the lighthouse keeper who was, if I remember rightly, a met observer, stated that they were in fog. One witness stated that he heard but could not see the crash but estimated he could not have been more than 100 yards from it.

If the evidence of Mr Holbrook, the yachtsman is regarded as proof that the over water weather was VMC, why is the Mull observers evidence disregarded as to the weather at the crash site?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Just a query.

SFFP suggests that only the crew would have known what the weather was at the crash site.

Dalek says "Weather at the crash site. Who knows?

Some nine or ten witnesses actually on the Mull including the lighthouse keeper who was, if I remember rightly, a met observer, stated that they were in fog. One witness stated that he heard but could not see the crash but estimated he could not have been more than 100 yards from it.

If the evidence of Mr Holbrook, the yachtsman is regarded as proof that the over water weather was VMC, why is the Mull observers evidence disregarded as to the weather at the crash site?

Because he was a 100 yards away from the crash site, in fog and unable to state, without any shadow of a doubt what the actual weather at the crash site was.................simples :ok:

[Chugalug2]

Beagle:
1. There was insufficient cause for Wratten and Day to pin their finding of Gross Negligence on the 2 pilots.
2. Various senior people allegedly ran roughshod over their own airworthiness regulations whilst trying to bring the HC2 into service.

Now, one might consider that 2 may well have been instrumental in the accident, but most folk simply accept that confirmation of 1 is the more important.

I am very aware that those who have fought the good fight from the very start have had one aim and one aim only, to overturn the finding of the AOC and the AOC-in-C and to thus restore the reputations of the two deceased pilots. That was, and is, a laudable and very understandable cause, given the outrageous injustice done in the name of the Royal Air Force to two deceased officers both of whom were highly professional pilots. The reason why that campaign failed time and time again despite support from the Scottish FAI, the House of Lords, the House of Commons and even the Secretary of State for Defence of the time is summarised succinctly by you in item 2. above.
It was not until the gross lack of airworthiness of ZD576 and its sister Chinook Mk2's as Released to Service was revealed in this very thread that some explanation for the bizarre and obdurate attitude of the MOD to what to most (!) everyone else seemed blatant injustice, as clear as a pikestaff, began to make sense. Now if it were only the reputations at stake of what are now retired senior RAF Air Officers, there might be some merit in your call to sort out 1, before moving onto 2. But 2. is the problem. 2 would mean that the whole UK Military Airworthiness process was criminally compromised at the highest levels. 2 would mean that the MOD cannot be left to self regulate airworthiness while acting as operator and accident investigator as well. Far more than Nimrod, Hercules, Tornado or Sea King, Mull shows that the MOD as Judge and Jury of its own actions will convict everytime, but never itself! The MAA and the MAAIB are its puppets. I'm sorry but this is far to serious a matter of life and death to delude ourselves to the contrary. I bore you all time after time with my mantra that:
Self-Regulation never works, and in Aviation it Kills!
for one reason only, it is a self evident truth! Unless and until Military Airworthiness Regulation is wrested from the MOD, more avoidable accidents will kill more people. That does not even make sense in military terms, let alone the needless grief and misery that come with those accidents. With respect to you Beags, and others who are so like minded, you are wrong. The imperative is 2, for if that be true many more lives remain at risk and we must succeed where Mr. Haddon-Cave QC failed. Then we can put right past injustices.

[Arthur Rowe]

I think that the evidence of the Yachtsman for the height and speed of the Chinook should be considered carefully as it may suffer from the effects of habituation and scale. He said that he was unfamiliar with the Chinook but was used to seeing SAR helicopters. The Chinook is a much larger aircraft and it would subtend a greater angle at the eye of the observer. It would therefore give the impression of being lower than its true height. This would then result its appearing to travel a shorter distance in the same time, giving the impression of flying more slowly than its true speed.

The effects of scale in the opposite sense can be seen with radio control scale model aircraft. They appear to be flying much faster than their true speed. The Red Bull air races have more dramatic impact as a result of greater apparent speed because the aircraft which are flown in them are relatively small.

As the Chinook is about twice the size of typical SAR helicopters I think the estimates by the Yachtsman of its height and speed should be increased by a factor of about two. This would mean the Chinook would have been flying at around 140 knots, which would agree with other evidence for its speed at that stage of the flight.

[Robin Clark]

Walter
sorry but I have to correct you on a couple of points........the BEL vor/dme at Aldergrove was on the northern perimeter of the airfield at the time of this flight , the frequency 117.2 is still in use although it has been moved a little SE since then .
You may be thinking of the older BEL vor on 116.2 which used to be south of Belfast and was discontinued at the time......
...on the Racal report , I think you need to read it again , the last operator input you refer to was 30 minutes before the flight departed ....

Arthur Rowe
the yachtsman was mistaken , if he really was where he thought , the Chinook would have passed about a mile away from him.......his impressions were never checked to authenticate , simply accepted..???????...
rgds Robin....

[walter kennedy]

Robin
I was using 54:39':40” 6:13':48” for Bel VOR – where did you think it was?
The ATC fix was obviously referenced to their radar.
Last operator input position was 2 nmiles out on their way – I had made that last post in a hurry and may have dug out the wrong time and so will recheck when I have more time to go through the info again.
V813 and waypoint A define exactly a track of 027 mag (using mag var at the time).
Thank you for pointing out the time error.

[tucumseh]

Now, one might consider that 2 may well have been instrumental in the accident, but most folk simply accept that confirmation of 1 is the more important. An independent judicial inquiry should resolve 1 fairly quickly, but would probably then lead to an in-depth investigation of 2 as more and more stones are turned over.

I wholeheartedly agree that the dearth of factual evidence regarding airmanship should have been sufficient to prevent the RO’s verdict. And I accept that is the driving force behind this 16 year campaign, both to families and their supporters, of which I am one.

However, the Board of Inquiry was duty bound to address airworthiness because an Organisational failure of that process was a verdict open to it. It failed in that duty despite a compelling raft of evidence from a number of respected officers. Yet, MoD claims all “Airmanship, Technical and Legal” aspects have been thoroughly investigated. The reason why there is this 3-pronged test is because there is overlap; the three are inextricably linked.

Most contributors here express views according to their area of expertise. Mine is most definitely not airmanship, but I know enough about airworthiness to know that the Haddon-Cave report applies even more to Chinook than it does to Nimrod. Had airworthiness been addressed in 1994, or in 1991 when the new policy to cease routinely maintaining airworthiness was introduced, then the underlying causes of other accidents would (hopefully) have been resolved long ago. My view is that if these airworthiness failings had been on the table in 1994, the ROs and their fellow Stars would have quietly backed away and, perhaps, said “Cause not positively determined”. This requirement to base judgment on all the available evidence is a fundamental legal principle. Most readers know that MoD sought to hide similar evidence on both Nimrod and Hercules; the key players will tell you both cases were won as soon as (lack of) airworthiness was mentioned. I say, place all the evidence on the table and let an independent legal review assess it as a whole.

Only then would it be time to treat these failings separately.

[Tandemrotor]

Arthur Rowe:
As the Chinook is about twice the size of typical SAR helicopters
Interesting theory. I can only assume you are unaware of the relative fuselage lengths of Sea King and Chinook?

Mr Holbrook (the yachtsman) was/is an instrument maker by trade, and was extraordinarily measured in his assessments. Extremely persuasive in the witness box at the FAI.

[dalek]

Bos,
I don't think anybody disregards the lighthouse keepers version of the weather. It is likely, indeed very likely that the crash site was in fog.
But take a look at some of the photos published on this site. The edges of a fogbank can be very well defined, so even an observer an "estimated" 100m from the crash site may not be able to see his nose, while 50m away there may be unlimited visibility in three directions. What we are looking for is certainty, not opinion. There was no (surviving) observer at the point of impact.
Mr Holbrook does not show conclusively that the crew were legal VMC. However, if he could see the Mull and the aircraft at ranges of around 2nms, it is likely / probable that the crew could do the same. In other words there is nothing in his testimony to show illegal low flying.

[walter kennedy]

TandemRotor wrote
<<Mr Holbrook (the yachtsman) was/is an instrument maker by trade, and was extraordinarily measured in his assessments. Extremely persuasive in the witness box at the FAI. >>
BUT the judgement of the height of aircraft height and speed is difficult, especially an unfamiliar a/c against a backdrop of grey sky.
Select committee
70. Mr Holbrook explained to us that he had repeatedly but unsuccessfully asked to see photographs of a Chinook at different heights and ranges, in order the better to estimate the height and speed of the aircraft when he saw it. He clearly felt that he would have been in a better position to assist the Board had he been furnished with such information. We do not know why the Board did not accede to his request or afford him the opportunity of seeing a Chinook in flight.

[Boslandew]

Dalek

If the observer was an estimated 100 metres, lets be generous and say 200 metres, from the crash, then the crash was 100 (200) metres from the observer who was in thick fog. A moot point as to how the aircraft could have been VMC, 1000metres viz in all directions. However, I accept your point that, once again, there is no absolute certainty.

SFFP

By your definition, if an aircraft crashed in poor viz on the threshhold of a runway, then ATC are not at the crash site.

Looking a bit wider, prior to this particular case and thinking back to 35 years worth of reading accident reports, I'm hard pushed to think of a case in which a number of witnesses stated that a hill feature was in fog and an aircraft hit that feature, 810 ft up, yet doubt remained about the weather conditions on that feature.

[Tandemrotor]

Boslandew

Just a quick question:

If I were standing in a fog patch (possibly 'hill fog'), and even if others were too; how could we know what people standing outside that fog patch could see? Or indeed how far those conditions extended?

Of course if we had evidence from someone who was outside that hill fog, a yachtsman perhaps, he may be able to enlighten us??

However, if the implications of such approximation of weather were significant, perhaps we would err on the side of caution, rather than on the side of certainty, when reaching a conclusion?

[BOAC]

yet doubt remained about the weather conditions on that feature - Bos - I think we are wandering away from the issue here - I cannot believe that anyone will argue that the crash site was not 100% solid IMC. That is not really the issue. The issue is how the helicopter got there. We have those who 'imply' they know it was negligence and that the crew deliberately entered IMC. We have those who do not know why (that in reality includes the BoI and the Reviewing officers).

I can see little point in any discussions revolving around the point of impact in terms of weather. I would suggest there is no-one who can claim the site of the crash was clear of fog or orographic cloud. I don't think SFFP is actually suggesting that.

[Robin Clark]

Walter
Yes the current BEL vor is at the location given , north of the threshold for runway 17 , slightly east of the centreline....My old documents from 1994 give a slightly different loc. but probably due to rounding up/down the numbers...........
..more importantly , I think that is is extremely unlikely that they maintained the track of 027 mag. for long , as this would entail flying over mountains up to 1400 feet high on their way to the Irish coast.......a waste of time and the old icing questions again......

rgds Robin....

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

- Bos - I think we are wandering away from the issue here - I cannot believe that anyone will argue that the crash site was not almost certainly 100% solid IMC. That is not really the issue. The issue is how the helicopter got there. We have those who 'imply' they know it was negligence and that the crew deliberately entered IMC. We have those who do not know why (that in reality includes the BoI and the Reviewing officers).

I can see little point in any discussions revolving around the point of impact in terms of weather. I would suggest there is no-one who can claim the site of the crash was clear of fog or orographic cloud. I don't think SFFP is actually suggesting that.

BOAC,

It is not my intention to be rude however the inclusion in red best sums up my thoughts with regard to the weather.

[Boslandew]

This discussion comes down, as it has always done, to what is 100% proof. We are splitting hairs extremely finely because it is only a split hair between 99.5% probability and 100% certainty.

BOAC

It seems to me that SFFP is arguing that because there was no-one who saw the actual crash and that it is conceivably possible that the aircraft was VMC, then there is no absolute proof that the aircraft was IMC and the case falls. With respect, I do think that the weather is one of the issues.

Tandemrotor

If one walker had reported being in fog, he could possibly have been in a 'fog patch'. If ten walkers on the hill in different locations all stated that they were in fog then they were not standing in a 'fog patch' but on a fog-covered hill. For the aircraft to have been operating within limits there would have to have been a corridor giving 1000 metres viz in all directions with a 250' cloudbase that was not evident to any of the walkers, never mind the guy 100 metres away.

[Tandemrotor]

Boslandew, a few very quick questions if I may:

1) What heights were these walkers?

2) Is it possible they were in cloud, with clear conditions below??

3) If they described visibility as 'coming and going', how might this phenomena appear to an a/c approaching this localised cloud?

4) How would you calculate a 99.5% probability?

I'm obliged

[Boslandew]

Tandemrotor

1 The report doesn't give heights. One walker reported that, in ten metres viz, he thought the aircraft was going to hit him but still couldn't see it.

2 It is of course possible but there is little to suggest that it was.

3 They didn't describe visibility as 'coming and going', they reported variously 'thick' or 'dense' fog, viz 15 metres, being unable to see the aircraft because it was 'up in the mist'.

4. You got me. I should have said a very high probability, see comments from BOAC and SFFP

[sycamore]

At a slight tangent; the weather at the crash site is described as foggy; elsewhere ,largely unknown apart from Mr Holbrooks account. So,I checked with the Northern Lighthouse Board if the foghorn was in operation at that time. There appears to be no information from the `walkers`,or the Lighthouse keeper as to whether it was/was not. It should have been audible over a range of at least 4 miles ,signalling `N`, (4 secs on,2 secs off, 2 secs on,82 secs off),with a Southerly breeze it would have been heard,unless people /walkers,would have subconsciously ignored it,if they were familiar with the area/conditions.It is/was automatic in operation and triggered to specific local weather conditions,generally vis <3 miles,ambient light,moisture concentration.However,no-one mentions it in the reports,maybe the questions were not asked.Unfortunately in 2005, `foghorns ` were withdrawn,and it appears from the NLB that records were also destroyed. Another question asked was whether there were any `automatic` weather stations at the Lighthouse and foghorn at the time. The answer was that it was not known,as it would be a Met Office task; on speaking to them ,they could not give a definitive answer,required a `letter of request` to dig up the
Archives.I`m surprised that the BOI did not investigate this possibility at the time..

[Tandemrotor]

Boslandew

Were I to suggest to you, that none of the 'weather witnesses' were below the height of the lighthouse (approx 300' asl) and the cyclists Bracher and Ellacott were close to, if not above the accident elevation (810' asl) would you be able to quote evidence to contradict me?
2 It is of course possible (that there were clear conditions below) but there is little to suggest that it was.
But of course there was one witness to give a unique view of the weather at low level; that of the yachtsman Holbrook! He sees the aircraft clearly.

Ergo, isn't it not only possible, but likely, that weather conditions were indeed clear enough for VFR only a very short distance from our land locked observers! Anything else is little more than speculation.

As for cazatou's (K52) earlier suggestion of a 'radar fix', this is of course a complete invention, or simply 'slap dash' research. There was of course no such thing!

Please let's stick to the FACTS chaps, otherwise I will just have to keep coming along to correct you!

[BOAC]

"then there is no absolute proof that the aircraft was IMC and the case falls." I cannot speak for Brian and the rest, but I would be very surprised if they are hanging their hats on that. The primary objections surely are that the RAF's own recommendations preclude apportioning Gross Negligence to dead crews (and as far as I know that had not happened before or after, which is interesting) and the fact that there remains no proof of the same. If indeed the fog horn was not operating that would support the belief that at sea level the conditions were not a problem.

[pulse1]

Amazingly we seem to be going round the bouys again, hopefully for the very last time. May I remind everyone that Wratten's view, consistantly supported on this thread by John Purdey, was that gross negligence occurred at waypoint change. The only certain thing you can say from the witness evidence is that the crew would never have seen the ground where the land based witnesses were actually standing. The yachtsman's evidence suggests that they were probably in VMC when the Chinook passed him.

Anything else is pure speculation. No-one, including JP, has ever been able to say what the crew could or could not see from the cockpit at waypoint change. Neither can anyone say with any degree of certainty that they were going too fast at that time. These are the two pillars of Wratten's judgement - they were too fast under the conditions at waypoint change. Yet, in the nine years this thread and its predecessor have been running, no-one can say how fast or what the conditions were as seen from that point.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

pulse,

You put into words my thoughts exactly.

:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Abbey Road]

May I remind everyone that Wratten's view, consistantly supported on this thread by John Purdey, was that gross negligence occurred at waypoint change.Yes, it has been noticed that John Purdey closely supports "Wratten's view". One wonders whether they are joined at the hip.

[Boslandew]

Tandemrotor

I’m sorry but I don’t understand your reasoning. I may have missed something, a far from rare occurrence these days.

The yachtsman said that the weather over the sea was clear and that the base of the Mull was visible up to about the level of the lighthouse. It is worth mentioning that the yachtsman did not know until later that the aircraft had crashed and his recollections of the weather are possibly less accurate than those who heard the crash.

However, the aircraft did not crash at sea or at the base of the Mull. It crashed at or close to a point that more than one observer said was in fog, five hundred feet above a point that four witnesses said was in fog and on a hill feature which all witnesses on that feature said was in fog.

Now it is not impossible that somewhere above the light house there was an area of VMC, 1000 metres in all directions and 250ft cloudbase. However, all the available evidence from those actually on the Mull is to the contrary. It seems to me to be a reasonable assumption that there is a high degree of probability that the crash site was in IMC.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Tandemrotor

I’m sorry but I don’t understand your reasoning. I may have missed something, a far from rare occurrence these days.

The yachtsman said that the weather over the sea was clear and that the base of the Mull was visible up to about the level of the lighthouse. It is worth mentioning that the yachtsman did not know until later that the aircraft had crashed and his recollections of the weather are possibly less accurate than those who heard the crash.

However, the aircraft did not crash at sea or at the base of the Mull. It crashed at or close to a point that more than one observer said was in fog, five hundred feet above a point that four witnesses said was in fog and on a hill feature which all witnesses on that feature said was in fog.

Now it is not impossible that somewhere above the light house there was an area of VMC, 1000 metres in all directions and 250ft cloudbase. However, all the available evidence from those actually on the Mull is to the contrary. It seems to me to be a reasonable assumption that there is a high degree of probability that the crash site was in IMC.

Bos,

All the clues are there :ok:

[meadowbank]

I don't believe that ANY of the campaigners have any doubt (whatsoever!) that the hillside where the aircraft impacted was in IMC at the time of impact, nor that the lighthouse keeper was also standing in IMC, but the fact that the aircraft crashed whilst IMC does not mean that it had been deliberatley flown there.

It is very likely that the aircraft was under control when the Supertans waypoint was changed to a point further up the coast and very likely that this selection indicates that the crew had visual contact with the coastline at the time. What we don't know is why the aircraft did not subsequently turn the necessary few degrees to the left. A number of hypotheses have been put forward in an effort to explain what may have happened but, in the absence of ADR/CVR, we shall never know what DID happen. But we do not know, even 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the reason was the negligence of the crew.

The aircraft's supposed (high) groundspeed is used by Day/Wratten (+ JP et al) as evidence that the crew was already negligent by the time of the waypoint change, in that they were flying too fast for the conditions, but this logic is flawed. An alternative explanation is that, notwithstanding the fog at the crash site, conditions were so good that a high-speed cruise was considered by this highly-experienced crew to be entirely appropriate. Weight is lent to this possibilty (probability?) by Holbrook's evidence and by anecdotal evidence by many on this thread regarding typical orographic conditions (ie often clear conditions in close proximity to the hill fog) in the area.

The MoD could have heeded the findings of the various inquiries already held and reversed this extremely unfair finding of Gross Negligence against Tapper and Cook; this would have left everyone happy, as even Day/Wratten could have conceded that new arguments had come to light and that they had acted in good faith. Now, however, the whole ugly truth about lack of airworthiness has come out and others have been placed in the firing line - those who, in the face of the experts' advice, pushed the HC Mk2 into service in a pretty shameful state.

I agree that the names of the pilots can be cleared pretty quickly, but the new Government should not shrink from a thorough and independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the entry into Service of this immature aircraft and why, despite no actual evidence, messrs Wratten/Day came to their remarkable conclusion. Was it that they honestly believed that an aircraft impacting a fog-shrouded hill was proof of its crew's negligence, or might it have been a way of hiding the fog-shrouded evidence that some of their Air-ranking colleagues had pushed an immature aircraft into service?

[Arthur Rowe]

I am aware of the relative lengths of the Sea King and the Chinook. However, comparing their silhouettes I would still say the Chinook is about twice the size of the Sea King. Perhaps bulk is a better word. A champagne flute may be taller than a half pint glass but the latter is bigger.

I am only trying to fathom out a reasonable explanation for the alleged change in speed of the Chinook. It seems very unlikely that it would slow down to 70 knots then accelerate to Vne as it approached the Mull.

If some people believe that this was the case are they trying to say that there was some fault with the engine control system, causing the aircraft to decelerate then accelerate uncontrollably, and that this was the cause of the accident? Perhaps distracting the crew at a critical time?

I think it is much more likely that it would be maintaintaining a steady speed. Perhaps 120 knots - two miles a minute, a very handy speed for navigational purposes, although it may well have been 140 knots.

As a fixed-wing pilot with little rotary experience I would certainly not describe even 140 knots as a dangerously high speed. At that speed the turning radius of any aircraft is very small and the Chinook should have been able to manoeuvre easily at turning points. I am sure someone with more rotary-wing experience will confirm or deny whether this is the case.

[Tandemrotor]

Arthur

I think we will have to disagree over the relative sizes of the two helicopters. However...

If you could share with us the basis upon which you wish to discount the evidence (likely or otherwise?) of the last known witness to see ZD576, perhaps we may be able to progress any theory that may follow?

Perhaps you have other witnesses to the speed of the aircraft, or recordings?

Could the a/c have increased speed shortly before impact? I accept it's possible.

Just show me the evidence that proves it didn't.

Edited to add:
the alleged change in speed of the Chinook

If a witness sees the aircraft at a speed that he assesses as 70kts, and it then impacts a hillside 60secs or so later at high speed, that's not an 'allegation', it is simply a statement of best evidence?

[tucumseh]

Arthur Rowe

If some people believe that this was the case are they trying to say that there was some fault with the engine control system, causing the aircraft to decelerate then accelerate uncontrollably, and that this was the cause of the accident? Perhaps distracting the crew at a critical time?


Not being a pilot I won't offer opinion, but simply quote the Release to Service which, at the time, warned of ;

Undemanded Flying Control Movement. Very sharp uncommanded inputs to the yaw axis which result in rapid change in aircraft heading in both hover and forward flight................... Aircraft to be landed as soon as practicable


There is no detailed audit trail accompanying this warning, nor should there be in the RTS, but the wording is remarkably similar to the events experienced shortly beforehand by Sqn Ldr Burke, later given in evidence. That is, at the end of a straight run he would experience an UFCM when attempting to execute a turn. I have always thought that a perfect description of what little we know of the final seconds. Notably, Sqn Ldr Burke was actively prevented from giving evidence at the time. Inconvenient to the RO's argument you see.

[walter kennedy]

Arthur Rowe
In my post 6488 I showed that Mr Holbrook was aware of his unfamiliarity with the a/c and would have liked to have seen examples, etc
Further, distance/time analysis by Boeing (not that simulation) has it that they had to have maintained that high cruise speed (over the whole of the leg from Aldergrove to the Mull) to have got there when they did and this did not allow any slowing down anytime as to have dione so would have required the time be made up with excessive (exceeding placard? whatever the term is) speed.
It was not just in the estimation of the a/c's speed that the RAF did not assist Mr Holbrook – they did not give him sufficient opportunity to expand on his view of the weather, which he did do in a subsequent inquiry, making it clear that the weather of concern was very much right on the Mull.
I say that they would have been aware of the Mull but judgement of distance to it would have been difficult had they for whatever reason been directly approaching it – further, identifying a specific point on it visually would have been almost impossible.
An ear witness on the Mull did not detect any adverse changes in noise that could have made him think that they did anything other than fly straight in.
There is nothing to suggest a control problem.
As I have put forward so often on this thread, there is plenty to suggest that they were approaching a known LZ and were using equipment that, by accident or by design, misled them.
Their turn from 027 to 035 at waypoint change, for which there is evidence that it was deliberate, put them onto the optimum approach line to the LZ (which was right by waypoint A) – had they been lined up with it, there was a safe wave-off by means of a moderate banked turn to the left initiated as they crossed the shoreline. Their mis-alignment and over-running the shoreline can be explained by their having refered to a local device that was out of position.
Of course, there are those on this thread who do not want to contemplate this scenario or perhaps see it as their duty to distract others from contemplating it. I think it was Churchill who said something like the truth is so fragile a thing that it needs to be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies – the truth in this case must be something very fragile. The families and colleagues of the pilots need to know what really happened – so does the British public – so however embarrassing or unpalateable a stuffed up exercise may be, how about at least talking about it? Someone must know something – sure as hell there was more to this than pilot error or fantastic control jams.

[Arthur Rowe]

Unfortunately, even with an eyewitness who is being as honest as he can in his recollection of an event, it has been shown that eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable.

There is an interesting article here, among many to be found on the web:

Eyewitness Testimony and Memory: Human Memory is Unreliable and so is Eyewitness Testimony (http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/eyewitness.htm)

I quote a short passage from the article.

''Eyewitness testimony is, at best, evidence of what the witness believes to have occurred. It may or may not tell what actually happened. The familiar problems of perception, of gauging time, speed, height, weight, of accurate identification of persons accused of crime all contribute to making honest testimony something less than completely credible.

Prosecutors recognize that eyewitness testimony, even when given in all honesty and sincerity, isn’t necessarily credible. Merely because a person claims to have seen something does not mean that what they remember seeing really happened — one reason why is that not all eyewitnesses are the same. To simply be a competent witness (competent, which is not the same as credible), a person must have adequate powers of perception, must be able to remember and report well, and must be able and willing to tell the truth.

Thus, such testimony can be critiqued on several grounds: having impaired perception, having impaired memory, having inconsistent testimony, having bias or prejudice, and not having a reputation for telling the truth. If any of those characteristics can be demonstrated, then the competency of the witness is questionable. However, even if none of them apply, that does not automatically mean that the testimony is credible. The fact of the matter is, eyewitness testimony from competent and sincere people has put innocent people in jail.

How can eyewitness testimony become inaccurate? Many factors can come into play: age, health, personal bias and expectations, viewing conditions, perception problems, later discussions with other witnesses, stress, etc.''

Is there a better explanation for the apparent change in speed of the Chinook? If so I would be very glad to hear it and give it due consideration. I do get a feeling that on this thread it is easy to wander into the full half hour of argument rather than five minutes, to quote Monty Python. To further quote:

''An argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying anything the other person says.''

''Oh no it isn't''

[Chugalug2]

Walter:
An ear witness on the Mull did not detect any adverse changes in noise that could have made him think that they did anything other than fly straight in.
There is nothing to suggest a control problem.
How on earth would an "ear witness" be able to hear a control problem, Walter? Perhaps he/she should have heard the sounds of the pallet springs becoming detached, as indeed they were found to be at the crash site? Oh, of course they were detached by impact forces alone, weren't they? Weren't they?
Arthur Rowe:
I do get a feeling that on this thread it is easy to wander into the full half hour of argument rather than five minutes, to quote Monty Python.

The only Pythonesque aspect here is to accept any part of a rigged accident investigation as gospel. The reason Mr Holbrook's testimony is so easily disparaged is that there is so little of it. The one and only eye witness available was dealt with and despatched with unseemly haste. The one expert witness to the many technical shortcomings of engine and flight control in the Chinook HC2, Sqn Ldr Burke was not called at all despite putting himself forward for that purpose. Now why would that be I wonder, given that the RAF included such shortcomings in the RTS?

[walter kennedy]

Chugalug
Human hearing is very sensitive to changes in sound.
The lighthouse keeper was a rotorwing enthusiast and had done some light a/c flying, as I understand. He seemed quite sure that there was no change in sound, that they went straight in.
When you watch a helicopter manoeuvre, you will surely note that it can't change much in terms of aspect, power, anything really without your ears picking up the changes in sound.
Are you suggesting that a control jam in a Chinook could have caused a turn (onto a heading that the HP just happened to have set) and allow an unstable a/c to fly over that last leg (waypoint change to impact, a significant length in such an emergency) without any audible sign of the pilot trying to regain control? Fantasy.

[Cows getting bigger]

Walter, fantasy is believing that some for of covert demonstration went tragically wrong with the whole event being conveniently (and very securely?) covered-up.

Equally, it is somewhat 'fantastic' that the RAF managed to overlook some hideously questionable airworthiness issues when carrying-out its own investigation into the crash.

[tucumseh]

Are you suggesting that a control jam in a Chinook could have caused a turn (onto a heading that the HP just happened to have set) and allow an unstable a/c to fly over that last leg (waypoint change to impact, a significant length in such an emergency) without any audible sign of the pilot trying to regain control?

Forgive me Walter, but is it not accepted fact that there was no need to execute the turn AT the Waypoint? The point made by Sqn Ldr Burke, denied at the time, was that at the end of a straight run, he had experienced sudden UFCMs when inputting the demand for a turn. And that this sudden change could take him in the opposite direction to that intended.

Could such an UFCM have been a contributory factor? I'll leave that to pilots to discuss. What is certain is that MoD thought it prudent to hide this fact for many years. Just as they concealed the positively dangerous software. It is called misleading by omission. I wonder what an independent inquiry will make of that?

[Chugalug2]

Walter:
When you watch a helicopter manoeuvre, you will surely note that it can't change much in terms of aspect, power, anything really without your ears picking up the changes in sound.
Presumably when you watch, or rather hear in this scenario, such a manoeuvre the changes of sound would come as a result of pilot control inputs. If such inputs cannot be made, because the flight controls are jammed, what changes in sound would you expect to hear? I do not say that this accident happened because the flight controls were jammed, Walter, because I do not know, but you stated that the "Ear Witnesses" heard nothing to suggest a control problem. I simply ask what would they hear if there were one?

[pulse1]

The lighthouse keeper was a rotorwing enthusiast and had done some light a/c flying, as I understand. He seemed quite sure that there was no change in sound, that they went straight in.


Although I have a son who flies them, I am not particularly an enthusiast of rotorwings and have done quite a lot of light a/c flying. What I am very familiar with is the sound of Chinooks approaching and passing very low overhead my house, especially late at night. (I love it!!). I would defy anyone who was not an expert to draw any conclusions from the way the sound changes as the aircraft approaches even when in a steady cruise.

[Robin Clark]

Walter
<p>Their turn from 027 to 035 at waypoint change, for which there is evidence that it was deliberate......</p> <br />
...sorry but there was NO RIGHT TURN after waypoint change.......
..this is a myth started I think by the Fellow from Boeing but few people bother to check his calculations........
..the only evidence for a turn to the right is the Lat.and Long. for the crash site as compared to the Lat.Long. for waypoint change.........but everyone forgets that the numbers for the waypoint change are from the GPS source........
If the A/C were at the absolute , correct and exact Lat.&Long. to WGS84 standard , when the change was made there might be a grain of truth in it ...........but we know that a few seconds later there was a significant GPS offset error of hundreds of metres , guiding them North and East of the true location.
Once we factor this in , plus the offtrack error where they had drifted to right of track (hence the heading of 018 degrees to steer to waypoint 'A' ), which is another 200 feet at least at this range , you will find that flying straight on takes one to the point of impact ...

regards to all on this sad anniversary.........

Robin....

[walter kennedy]

Tec
I was not referring to the hypothetical turn that was said at the inquiries should have been made to avoid the high ground – I was referring to the turn that analysis has them having actually made at or near the position where they changed the waypoint in the STANS. The track from NI to the position of waypoint change was 027 mag and the track from this position to the crash site was 035 mag which was found on the HP's course selector.
Tec&Chug
Either the pilot or an AFCS is continuously moving the controls to keep these (unstable) things straight and level – I would be surprised if a Chinook would have maintained a straight track over the distance of the last leg with even one control jammed – as I would be surprised if the pilot had not waggled controls any which way if he detected a jam which would have caused a/c attitude changes – and perhaps a change of power too.
Cows
<<Walter, fantasy is believing that some for of covert demonstration went tragically wrong with the whole event being conveniently (and very securely?) covered-up. >>
As briefly as I can: they were set up to approach a known LZ in conditions that would only have allowed such with a local reference, hence the demo theory of the particular equipment I have mentioned previously;
they managed to keep from more than one inquiry and from the general public the very existence of this equipment in HC2 Chinooks all these years, did they not?;
many would agree that it was folly to put the whole team on one helicopter in the first place and the consequences of the crash were so severe for the security forces that I'll bet the MOD and RAF would cover it up – when you add to this the prospect of possible civil unrest if there was any public perception of foul play I think that you will see that it could have been more important to cover this up than, say, the lie about WMD in Iraq;
the only part of what I think about this crash that I accept may be “fantasy” is the view that the exercise may have been set up to remove an obstacle to the peace process – if a new and more enlightened inquiry exposed such an exercise, then exposing who put it together and executed it would be a step towards determining whether anything wilful happened.


Robin
Do the chartwork properly – I checked out Mitchel's (of Boeing) analysis years ago and have been recommending that anyone interested in this case use it as a framework for their own efforts – it is the only decent effort I have come across which is surprising given that the alleged pilot error implied their being unaware of how close in they were, one would have expected an “official” version whereas all we got was the fudged track presented by one of the AVMs at the HOL inquiry – you don't have to use it as gospel, but it is a useful example to follow when working it out for yourself.
<<... but we know that a few seconds later there was a significant GPS offset error of hundreds of metres >> - are you getting confused with the difference between the GPS and Doppler position data at impact? They could not have been getting processed (range/bearing info) of any use to them after waypoint change (because they had changed the waypoint to one 80+ miles away) and I do not see them being able to work out were they were precisely using the raw GPS position and a chart that close in at that speed so after waypoint change the GPS performance would have been irrelevant – besides, Flt Lt Tapper would not have regarded the SuperTANS as reliably accurate enough to have got that close in in those conditions with only it anyway.
<<... (hence the heading of 018 degrees to steer to waypoint 'A' ), which is another 200 feet at least at this range ,>> - I think you'll find it was waypoint B in the part of that report you must be using, 80 + miles away – when you go back to checking it, I think you will find that 018 was true and the mag equivalent of 025 doesn't immediately make sense – I have an explanation but am not very confident in it and would be interested in what you think of the anomaly.
I hope you have not been put up to this distraction -if you are genuine, pls check your work a bit more before posting – some points have been covered long ago on this thread and there is a thread search function that can help you get through all the waffle.:ok:

[Chugalug2]

Walter:
Tec&Chug
Either the pilot or an AFCS is continuously moving the controls to keep these (unstable) things straight and level – I would be surprised if a Chinook would have maintained a straight track over the distance of the last leg with even one control jammed – as I would be surprised if the pilot had not waggled controls any which way if he detected a jam which would have caused a/c attitude changes – and perhaps a change of power too.
No doubt the gyrations of which you speak would have been plain to see, Walter. Trouble is there were no eye witnesses, only the "ear witnesses". As has been pointed out the turn could have been made at any time simply to stay clear of the coast and maintaining VMC. Only then would a control jam as proposed by Sqn Ldr Burke have manifested itself. Perhaps your gyrations then ensued, but what change in sound would have made a control problem clear to the ear witnesses?

[pulse1]

I can confirm that I have already asked the MoD to look at the best way of carrying out an independent enquiry

Am I the only one to get a terrible sense of foreboding the more I think about Liam Fox's above response to Menzies Cambell?

Considering that the MoD have been the driving force behind the last 16 years of obfuscation and lies by a succession of Government ministers, isn't this a bit like asking a villian to choose the process for the police investigation and trial?

I really hope that I am wrong but I do expect another fudged response from MoD which this new Government will find a way to accept. Perhaps 13 years of Blair/Brown have made me too cynical.

[Chugalug2]

If you are concerned about Wratten and Day's damning finding, pulse1, I think you might well find that a face saving formula will be arrived at and all will be well! If you are concerned that the lying stealing and cheating that is the MOD will continue to hazard the lives of those who it supposedly has a duty of care for then your concerns are well founded. The reason that a Grossly Unairworthy aircraft crashed into the Mull of Kintyre may never be known, but if ever an aircraft accident cried out for an independent professional investigation it is surely this one. The reason that it was Grossly Unairworthy can be summed up in four words- The Ministry Of Defence. I have said before that unless and until the Regulatory and Investigative Military Aviation functions are removed from this major aviation operator the needless death toll will continue. Nothing Dr Fox has said thus far hints at that changing.

[walter kennedy]

Pulse1
For once I am in complete agreement with a post here - you have hit the nail on the head.
The best chance, I suggest, for an independent inquiry would be to lobby the authorities in Scotland for a new FAI.

[Tandemrotor]

Arthur Rowe
I do get a feeling that on this thread it is easy to wander into the full half hour of argument rather than five minutes, to quote Monty Python. To further quote:

Had you spent only a fraction of the time on this subject as many here have, you might appreciate that, rarely is there a 5 minute answer. Though it may be convenient to overlook that fact having just 'dipped in' to the subject matter!

Having reviewed all your postings on this subject, I imagine it may assist, if you were to give a short summary of your opinion in this case rather than simply rubbishing the testimony of the only eye witness?

I'm obliged.

Edited to add: It may be that we have similar views, it's just very difficult to fathom what it is you are trying to establish?

[Robin Clark]

Hi Walter.........
...I am not sure that I understand any part of your post 6518........
..but.......
..the respected Mr J. Mitchell from Boeing states that there was a turn made nearly three degrees on to 022 true..


it was also right of its original course
from the ATC fix to Waypoint A.
The bearing from Waypoint Change to Last Steering Command is 22.22 degrees True,
which indicates that the route of the aircraft is ~3 degrees right of the initial route

...(this does assume they were flying a track of 19.5T towards the light house)
..checking my calc. and plotting it different ways , the most I can make it is one degree...and even that depends on how you round up/down fractions of one degree........
..they were navigating using the GPS source.......
..plotting all the GPS locations from the RACAL report , Aldergrove , waypoint change , last steering update , powerdown and the last unprocessed location from the Trimble GPS itself......you can see that they are all in a straight line.....
You think they turned much further..????????.....
..there was a sensor in the fuselage which reports the orientation in all three axes...and this did show some wild variations..........but I think you will agree that the direction in which the fuselage is pointing is not a reliable guide to which way the A/C is travelling , especially in a helicopter...
This does actually support my suggestion that they hit the ground briefly some time earlier and there were some wild gyrations before the main impact.... link (http://gneiss.dyndns.info/chinook.htm)........
rgds Robin..

[Arthur Rowe]

Tandemrotor.

I have read this thread from the beginning. I believe that the cause of the Chinook crash will always remain unknown. The original findings of the Board of Inquiry should have been accepted by the reviewing officers. A further proper independent and authoritative inquiry into the accident should be undertaken and its findings accepted.

I have not made many posts but when I have it is to try to bring some explanation to light drawing on personal experience or knowledge. You may wish to note that I have a full personal profile while many contributors to this thread do not. It is difficult to know whether they are writing with any authority when they express their opinions.

Perhaps I should not have invoked Monty Python but it was the 'automatic gainsaying' responses of some posters that I was hoping to point out.

As to eyewitness evidence, which do you think more likely; that the Chinook slowed down to 70 Knots then accelerated to almost Vne or that the yachtsman was mistaken in his estimate of its speed? And, from your personal experience, would 140 Knots have been a dangerous speed in the circumstances?

[Tandemrotor]

Arthur Rowe

As I suspected, we very largely agree.
As to eyewitness evidence, which do you think more likely; that the Chinook slowed down to 70 Knots then accelerated to almost Vne or that the yachtsman was mistaken in his estimate of its speed?
Having visited AAIB on a number of occasions, and 'sifted' the wreckage, and having also spoken to Mr Tony Cable at considerable length, I have absolutely no reason to suspect that the a/c impacted the ground at anything other than very high speed.

Indeed some senior officers even suggested the speed was so close to Vne that it is extraordinarily difficult to explain it within any normal regime!

On the other hand, I personally saw Mr Holbrook standing in the witness box at the FAI. He was an extremely persuasive witness! Everything he said was 'measured'. He is/was an instrument maker by trade. As an example, when he explained how he had assessed the height of ZD576, he said that he had used the height of the lighthouse, which he knew to be 300' above sea level, as a reference.

His assessment of speed was also referenced to the speed of Sea King helicopters with which he was very familiar. These are a very similar size in all respects to Chinooks.

Having personally heard his testimony, I have absolutely no doubts as to the accuracy of his evidence.

Perhaps just as importantly, as an experienced Chinook operator myself, the speed he describes ties in pretty well exactly with what I would expect in the weather conditions he outlines.

Indeed, speed just might be the most important anomaly in the entire body of evidence!

So how to explain the apparent discrepancy?

I have to say I cannot prove anything, but that does not mean the clues aren't available, and it certainly does not mean we should simply discard any evidence which does not 'fit' with some pre conceived (and unproven) notion of 'how it must have been'! Of course that is precisely what the reviewing officers felt able to do!

And, from your personal experience, would 140 Knots have been a dangerous speed in the circumstances?

From personal experience, it is extremely dangerous to impact terrain at 140kts. That does nothing to explain how it came to happen?

[walter kennedy]

As I am on TR's ignore list, I think I had better repost my #6488 regarding the confidence of Mr Holbrook's judgement:
<<TandemRotor wrote
<<Mr Holbrook (the yachtsman) was/is an instrument maker by trade, and was extraordinarily measured in his assessments. Extremely persuasive in the witness box at the FAI. >>
BUT the judgement of the height of aircraft height and speed is difficult, especially an unfamiliar a/c against a backdrop of grey sky.
Select committee
70. Mr Holbrook explained to us that he had repeatedly but unsuccessfully asked to see photographs of a Chinook at different heights and ranges, in order the better to estimate the height and speed of the aircraft when he saw it. He clearly felt that he would have been in a better position to assist the Board had he been furnished with such information. We do not know why the Board did not accede to his request or afford him the opportunity of seeing a Chinook in flight. >>

Why the hell they would have slowed down in the area the yachtsman saw them anyway ? - were they supposed to be in difficulty there and yet carried on course a couple of miles further?!!!!

Robin
“Miller” or “Mitchell”?
Try plotting the track from one of the positions that you think they started from at or near Aldergrove to the position where they changed the waypoint; then plot the track from the position of waypoint change to the position of first impact. The difference in this track angle suggests a turn at or near the position of waypoint change.
Not only is this substantial but it also happens to fit with what was found on the HP's HoSI course selector, the instrument he would have been steering by.
Now you wrote <<..they were navigating using the GPS source....... >> - not after the change of the waypoint in the SuperTANS they weren't – as I explained previously, at their speed comparing raw GPS from the SuperTANS CDU with a map of any sort would not have been practical.


ALL
Why not go as a group up to the Mull this week and charter a small boat - stand off the Mull in the early evening and see what it would have been like - you'd be unlucky to not get it the same as those conditions were prevalent at that time of day, at that time of year. with a southerly blowing. Ask the skipper to tell you how far off you are with his radar - at several distances - you can see it but judgement of range is very difficult in those conditions.

[Robin Clark]

The fishing boats were never traced , so much attention was paid to the evidence provided by one of the yachtsmen........
..however convincing he may have seemed his testimony was inconsistent
.ie ... when asked by the HOL what he thought the visibility was , he says 7 nm , then later states that he can see the island of Sanda (9nm) and the Irish coast(10nm)...
..also....

The Ministry of Defence notes Mr Holbrook’s evidence to the Committee that the pilots would have been able to see the position of the lighthouse on approach to the Mull. But according to the evidence offered to the Fatal Accident Inquiry, at the time he saw the helicopter he believed he was about two miles south west of the lighthouse and that the aircraft was ¼-½mile away, at a height of 200-400 ft. He estimated the speed of the aircraft to be 60-80 knots, although in evidence to the RAF Board of Inquiry (BOI) he suggested that it was travelling " ….. somewhat faster than Sea Kings in level flight ….", which is typically an airspeed of some 100-110 kts. Mr Holbrook also indicated to the Fatal Accident Inquiry that he watched the helicopter for only some 25-30 seconds, during which time he was manoeuvring his yacht around fishing boats (although in evidence to the BOI and to the Committee, Mr Holbrook indicated that his sighting of the aircraft was limited to a five second view ......


..everyone responds to pressure in different ways , and I do not envy him the bias he must have felt people were applying to his words....

Walter
..it is important to use all position references from the same source , hence my use of the GPS co-ordinates ........
..if you mix in real , true OS lat/long to WGS84 as well , you will get varying results as the GPS positions were all displaced 0.1NM in the alignment 55degrees/235degrees.(reciprocals).......

rgds Robin.......

[Chugalug2]

Arthur Rowe:
The original findings of the Board of Inquiry should have been accepted by the reviewing officers.
I see no reason why the original findings of the Board of Inquiry should be accepted by anyone, least of all by the Reviewing Officers whose creature (as with all BoI's) it was. Therein lies the real dilemma. If the BoI is briefed to act freely and purposefully, and to truly endeavour to discover the causes of an aircraft accident, then they may possibly be discovered. Given any pressure or dissembling to prevent that and they will not. There is abundant evidence that both happened in this case and no doubt in other BoI's as well. This is a dysfunctional system as is that of expecting an aircraft operator to be its own regulator. It seems that both regulation and investigation ceased to function as they were supposed to shortly after the end of the Cold War, no doubt casualties of the "Peace Dividend". If there be no other positive outcome to the ensuing tragedies that followed than the recognition of the urgent need to separate both from the MOD and to implement the necessary reform to do so then the many lives lost would not have been entirely in vain. Airworthiness Regulation and Air Accident Investigation should be as independent of the MOD as it is of BA.
Self Regulation never works, and in Aviation it Kills!

[dalek]

I have followed with interest the exchanges between Athur Rowe and Tandemrotor. What those exchanges, and others on the subject show is just how little factual information we have and just how contradictory that information is.
Arthur, I accept that Mr Hollbrook may have been wrong with his estimates of height and speed. However as an experienced sailor you also have to accept that he may well have been fairly accurate with his assessment of height, speed and weather. So less than two minutes from impact the crew were flying legally, at a sensible speed and "apparantly" under full control.
We know that the crash site was either in cloud / fog or at least on the very edge of it. We also know the aircraft impacted at or around VNE. (Mr Cable, expert witness.)
How can this be explained?

1. Gross negligence. Having seen the Mull the operating pilot reached down and selected a very large handful of throttle. He then deliberately pointed his aircraft into a cloudbank and hit the ground.
If we accept the Holbrook evidence why on earth did the crew, who had up until a few seconds earlier been flying at a sensible speed do this? Remember also the decision of the operating pilot to take this course of action was being monitored by two other experienced aircrew.
2. Major technical malfunction. Sqn Ldr Burke was right all along.
3. Pilot / Aircrew error. The crew approached the Mull at a 70 kts. They identified the Mull at an estimated 3 nms and now felt safe to accelerate to a higher speed, prior to the turn. Due to an transient error in the TANs they were not at 3nms they were at one. Victims of visual illusion. Now throw in another distraction such as a caption, they would be into the cloud before they could respond.
The likes of John Purdy and Cazatou will tell you that such a scenario is fanciful. If crews never fall victim to visual illusion or distraction, why do IFS waste so much money making films about them?

On balance of probabilities I favour 3. 2. 1.
So Baston I agree with you. Pilot error is a likely scenario.
You can,t rule out 2 or 1 though, can you.

[walter kennedy]

Dalek
Just a quickie – here's one little bit of information that has been mentioned before regarding speed:
You wrote <<We also know the aircraft impacted at or around VNE. (Mr Cable, expert witness.)
How can this be explained?
1. Gross negligence. Having seen the Mull the operating pilot reached down and selected a very large handful of throttle. >>;
Well actually they had “throttled” back to an intermediate level and held it long enough for the engines to be matched – as the Boeing analysis pointed out, the resultant reduction in airspeed was masked by the increased tailwind as they approached the landmass. As the airmass pushed up the slopes, the lower layer increases in speed significantly – it also gives rise to the “ground-hugging” mist that runs up the slopes with a strong on-shore wind. Not only was this mist evidence of the strong wind, the wind speed was recorded there at 30-35 kts.
An explanation for this is frightfully simple – they had eased back to coast in towards the shoreline but were already much closer in than they had thought.

[dalek]

Walter makes a valid point.
I would imagine an aircraft flying at 70 IAS / TAS with 100kts tailwind and an aircraft flying at 170 IAS / TAS in still air would create very similar debris paterns on the ground.
Mr Holbrook could never assess IAS / TAS he could only assess GROUNDSPEED.
Even if there was a sudden and dramatic increase in tailwind of say 30 kts over the cliff ( which incidentally would lead to severe turbulence) it can only account for part of the increase in GROUNDSPEED.
Some of the increase had to come from increased power.
I have never met any pilot, who, confronted with deteriorating weather conditions, deliberately increases speed.

[Robin Clark]

Dalek , Walter...
..just one small point here.........
..there were no power levers for the engines.........
..the whole point of FADEC is to allow the engines to respond by themselves to any need for more or less power.....in order to maintain rotor rpm within the critical range.....

..there was no evidence that full emergency power was ever used , as it starts a counter to record the fact if sensed for more than one second........

rgds Robin....

[walter kennedy]

dalek
Pls download and read Mitchell of Boeing "Analysis of Available Data" - the argument in that doc is robust for the a/c having maintained a steady high cruise speed over the whole of that first leg.
Robin
While you make some worthy points (which I will address after recovering from the holiday weekend here in WA) this latest post shows that you have not followed the thread nor understood the use of ""s around "throttle.." - when you dip in lightly you weaken your good points.

[chinook240]

as it starts a counter to record the fact if sensed for more than one second

5 seconds...............

[dalek]

Walter,
I was trying to stay out, but your last entry does need challenging. Look up the word "available" in the dictionary.
I have stated earlier I know/ knew quite a lot about low level navigation, meteorology and flight safety. I know little or nothing about computer flight simulations.
Even so I read the Boeing report and could not understand how they could replicate the final flight of ZD 756 without ADR inputs. I asked lots of "experts". They told me it was impossible to do so.
Earlier in this thread Boeing admit that the simulation shows what "may" have happened, not what "did".

HOL para 132.
" we conclude that it would be quite inappropriate to treat the results of the simulation as proven facts."


If you are using the simulation to show that Holbrook may have been wrong, fine. If you are tring to disprove his evidence it just does not wash.

Instead of trying to rubbish the evidence of the last credible witness, why don't we use the few available facts to see if he could be right.

Much has been made about the high speed transit and possible breach of VNE. We do have a Take Off time (ish). We do have a time of impact, (precise or ish) depending on the TANS. We know the distance between the two points.
Everything I have read, points to an average Groundspeed at or just above 150kts.

Let us simulate the flight:

The crew get airborne already knowing they are up against crew duty restraints. They are going to fly as fast as conditions allow.
VNE is 160 but that would involve uncomfortable vibration for the pax.
I am told by an experienced Chinook operator that an IAS of 150 is realistic and in most conditions comfortable. They are likely to choose that speed.
We have from forecast ( and some actuals) an estimated tailwind of some 15 - 20 kts.
If the crew maintain 150IAS or 165 - 170GS. They are going to arrive early at the crash site. To make T/O and impact times fit, part of the sortie has to be flown at a lower speed.
In all probability they maintain 150 until approaching the coast. In marginal conditions they would then "thr (sorry Robin), slow down" until they were certain of their position and could see the coast. Just good common sense and airmanship.
Any evidence to support this hypothesis? Well yes, MR Holbrook our eyewitness. He would have seen them at this stage of flight.
We know from the evidence of Mr Cable that impact was aroond 150IAS 174 GS.

Very few people dispute Mr Holbrooks version of the weather. The visibility was 1 - 2 nms. The crew almost certainly could see what Holbrook could see.
Arthur Rowe explains why he thinks Holbrook was wrong. But even if the Chinook was at double his (Holbrooks) minimum estimated GS,(of 60 to 80 kts GS), there still needed to be a significant increase in GS between sighting and impact. Far more than could be explained by an increase in tailwind over the cliffs.

Having slowed down from 150IAS to something between 60 and 120, why did they decide to fly faster into deteriorating weather. In all my 10,000 hours I have never encountered a pilot who choses to accelerate into worsening conditions.

To me the answer is fairly obvious:
a. They had no control over the aircraft.
b. They thought they had a lot more time to react than they did.

If I bite again on this subject, please feel free to shoot me.

[Arthur Rowe]

Tandemrotor.

BBC NEWS | UK | Chinook rescues helicopter (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7493547.stm)

OK, I agree, not twice as big!

[walter kennedy]

Dalek
NOT the simulation -

Mull of Kintyre -Analysis of Available Data
8-7D20-DS S-03 06, Enclosure 4
Dated: June 18,2002
James Mitchell Technical Fellow
The Boeing Company

And I have taken this approach a lot further – without needing cockpit recorders of any kind - read the thread.

[4468]

walter kennedy.

I confess I have not read it. Is there a link?

However would I be correct in thinking that this 'analysis' by the aircraft manufacturer, probably shows the manufacturer's product behaving precisely as advertised? :rolleyes:

(Just a hunch you understand!)

[Robin Clark]

Dalek and 4468
link here for the report from Mr.J. Mitchell ..........excellent as it is , he also fails to take into account the whole flight ........
...the first half of the leg was through mountainous countyside on the way to the Irish coast , so very unlikely that they would have flown in a straight line and/or at top speed until reaching the sea.......

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/6A278FBA-D977-47B0-8BEC-A2C6AB12B868/0/chinook_boeing1d.pdf


...another point I have never seen discussed.....I thought any significant change in speed would be accompanied by a change in attitude.....ie. slowing gives nose up and some ballooning , speeding up gives nose down ....

I remain convinced that they planned a quick dash across open water to reach land before anything broke or came loose......link (http://gneiss.dyndns.info/chinook.htm)..

rgds Robin........

[Tandemrotor]

RC

Thank you.

I'm afraid when I read the following, my appreciation of this effort diminished somewhat!
However, the position for the ATC fix is not stated with the same
accuracy, therefore it must be evaluated over a range of possible values to develop a
clearer picture. The range of values analyzed is listed below:
1. Range: nominal = 7nm; range 6.75nm to 7.25nm

So:

To be clear. The crew made a radio call saying they were at the 'zone boundary' and were going 'QSY'. This gentleman assumes they were accurate to within a quarter of a mile.

Wow!

If I had made the same call to within 2 or 3 miles, I'd be pretty happy!

It's all based on assumption, and information retrieved from a device that was never designed to provide historical data!

It's a simulation of a possible scenario, produced by the manufacturer of the vehicle that crashed! No more, no less.

Don't think we need to take any of it as 'factual'!

[walter kennedy]

4468
I have been recommending for years (on this thread) that this document is a useful framework to use for your own dist/time calculations.
You should bear in mind that on a flight earlier in the day, ZD576 was reported to have flown smoothly in excess of 140 kts TAS – more than an HC1 but as expected for an HC2.
However, without exceeding the optimum top end cruising speed, this was insufficient to have allowed anything other than sticking closely to the declared track of 027 mag from NI to the position of waypoint change – which helps in understanding (or rather reducing) the possibilities, and we are left with the simple conclusion that they had maintained a straight track of 027 at a constant airspeed for the whole of that long first leg (taking into account the wind) – there simply was not time for them to have slowed down and then speeded up at any point without significantly exceeding recommended max speed.
From waypoint change to the crash site, allowing for the significantly higher wind speed near and on the slopes of the Mull, they actually had dropped in TAS and this is consistent with the matched intermediate power level that was determined from crash investigations.
I have it that their turn was greater than Mitchel's estimate (I will expand on the analysis which gave this soon when I have time) – I had it that they had turned to 035 mag at or very near waypoint change which was as per the HP's HoSI course selector (suggesting an intended heading) and, as I recall, did not Racal's report state that at last steering command calculation (over land and very near to crash site) the STANS thought it was on a track of 035 mag?
I say that 035 mag was the optimum approach to a known LZ at waypoint A – why?: well from familiarisation with the site and talking to locals (incl a light house keeper) I found out that helicopters approaching that site lined up on a big rock in the sea just off the shoreline - a line of 035 mag (at the time) which was also the long axis of the spacious LZ. That LZ was at a height similar to the lighthouse and one of the baro altimeters was set as per QFE at that elevation, as I have explained in detail on this thread a long time ago.
Just on the above points alone, common sense has it that one obvious option (worthy of consideration at least) for their actions is that they had reached a point close in to the Mull (waypoint change) where they abandoned STANS navigation and turned in towards the land thinking they were lined up with that LZ (that they had visited on previous occasions) using some local reference and that they had eased up to coast in thinking they had further to go than they actually had.
With the conditions ahead on the landmass (oro cloud obscuring the higher topographical features and mist running up the slopes obscuring ground detail) they could only have attempted this by referring to something that they could trust – they only candidate for this would have been the CPLS and all that was required for them to have been misled as to their alignment and distance to go would have been for the PRC112 handset (associated with the CPLS) that should have been at the LZ to have been ½ mile or so up the slope from that LZ.
One of the primary uses of the CPLS is all weather approaches to LZs.
Despite this obvious possibility, this system was never mentioned at any of the inquiries to date yet we now know that it was fitted.
This alone is grounds for a new inquiry.

[Tandemrotor]

I've just sent a pm to a fellow contributor. As it took me a little while to collate the info, I hope he won't mind me sharing it with you. It may be of interest?

Mrs Sinead Swift is the controller who provided evidence to the BOI (not known if this was under oath?) and subsequently at the FAI. To the BOI she made a statement including the following:

The helicopter was observed on radar to track outbound on the 027 degree radial from the Belfast VOR, as it had requested. At 1747 hrs, the aircraft reported at the Zone Boundary, and advised changing to an en-route frequency. The helicopter was observed on radar to be approximately 7 nm out on the 027 degree radial from the Belfast VOR.
(For information, the zone boundary is actually 9 nm.)

At the subsequent FAI, and giving extensive evidence under oath, no mention whatsoever was made of any radar contact. Points that were covered however included:

!) Mrs Swift had to ask 'F40' to repeat the zone boundary call, as she "might have been on a telephone call to someone else and missed" (the first call).

2) Belfast Aldergrove had no SSR

3) F40 was cleared to fly VFR below 500'. (I leave it to you to decide whether this was likely to be closer to 100' over NI in 1994?)

Another witness: Anne Tylor from Carnlough, approximately 3/4 mile from the coast, describes ZD576 as "skimming the chimney tops and rooftops", and flying along a glen with the trees above. Following the contours of the ground.

Is it likely this a/c was visible on radar? Even if it were, how accurate was Mrs Swift's recollection? She was handling more than one helicopter.

I have no idea whether any radar traces for this period are still available, nor whether it is possible to match these chronologically with any voice communications.

That's all there really is on this 'RADAR FIX' I think?

[tucumseh]

Isn’t it odd how Boeing and MoD place such unerring faith in a system (RNS252 / GPS) when, just a few months earlier, both were content that the Release to Service warned aircrew that it should not be trusted. Not to use it as the sole NavAid. To ignore Error messages as “meaningless”. That GPS hadn’t been granted Initial Operating Capability and its performance couldn’t be guaranteed. Its rubbish, just rely on the other NavAids – but we’ll let you know in due course if we decide to clear them for use.

May I suggest it may have helped matters to simply follow the regulations, establish an installed performance and give the aircrew some meaningful assistance through an unambiguous clearance or limitation, instead of just saying the system produces “meaningless” messages. If that was a TV you wouldn’t buy it in the first place. This was an aircraft for God’s sake. But no, MoD blithely ignored their own regulations and told the aircrew to suck it and see.

And, while it appears the system was being used as Waypoint A was approached, the AAIB’s opinion was that at impact the RNS252 was switched off. Not by impact, but at impact. What happened in between these events regarding a system the aircrew did not trust?

Speaking of the AAIB, Boeing’s report clearly assumes that organisation is an agent of the MoD and privy to all relevant information – information that Boeing state was not available to themselves as the Aircraft Design Authority. But, as we know, the AAIB was kept even more in the dark by MoD. I’ve read hundreds of such ADA reports – this one is so full of caveats and get-outs as to be completely meaningless. Just like RNS252 messages. Without first addressing the above issues the true context can never be understood. Which is why MoD don’t want to go there.

[Cows getting bigger]

If the aircraft departed over Co. Antrim at less than 500ft (AGL or AMSL) there is no way it could have maintained a constant track. Therefore, not only are the accuracy of timings given by ATC questionable, speculation using V=D/T calculations must be questionable. Then again, all the wind values that have been previously used must have been best guesses.

[walter kennedy]

Cows
<<If the aircraft departed over Co. Antrim at less than 500ft (AGL or AMSL) there is no way it could have maintained a constant track.>>
It was certainly possible to have maintained a constant track on 027 (from V813 to waypoint A) over the Antrim hills as the cloudbase was sufficiently high in the region - what on earth are you saying here?.
The highest ground that they would have had to cross was about 1000ft in the vicinity of Sleamish (1400 ish), and the track was along the edge of the coastal hills allowing them to have been very low around Carnlough without having deviated from that track.
The ATC fix was 500 metres east of that track (close enough for their purposes) but it should be noted that the 027 was from the radar site - not the Belfast VOR site - so that fix should be taken as 7 nmiles from the radar on 027 mag from that radar.
Anything but the obvious.:rolleyes:

[Robin Clark]

Walter....
The Route........
...well yes physically they could have flown direct if the weather allowed , (although there is a speed , time , and fuel penalty involved in climbing to overfly an obstruction which you could otherwise easily detour around)....
.........but in this case their clearance was to fly VFR below 500 feet ......
..if they had wanted to fly higher they could have filed an IFR flightplan , been assigned a squawk , and been under radar control in order to avoid conflict with other traffic until they cleared controlled airspace ......
...also the area is not a wilderness , whilst flying low they would have been weaving around to avoid communities , churches , schools , herds of livestock etc......as well as the mountains....
...hence my statement that they could NOT have maintained their high average speed over this part of the journey......

.....also they may have been observed departing Aldergrove on 027 , and also observed at 7NM , but not at one and the same time...
..this distance and heading takes one up a mountainside above the 500' point ....
.......they probably headed for the M2 motorway interchange to avoid Antrim town and hospital , then turned left to skirt around the mountain . Heading north then towards Ballymena would take them out of the zone (Belfast CTR).......and they would be free to climb then as needed . The A42 from Ballymena to Carnlough follows a valley which goes up to nearly 700 feet....their most direct option ........


The "turn".....
...if you post the co-ordinates which you used to plot their "turn"........or PM them to me , I will try to determine why your interpretion is so different from my own.......link (http://gneiss.dyndns.info/chinook.htm)

regards Robin....

[Mmmmnice]

WK
"One of the primary uses of the CPLS is all weather approaches to LZs"

No it is not - it is merely to locate a subject in possession of a PRC112 or similar

[tucumseh]

it is merely to locate a subject in possession of a PRC112 or similar


From CPLS documentation..........

"It also provides the capability to home to any continuous wave signal in its frequency range".

Of course that doesn't mean Chinook crews used it that way.


What is more interesting about this post is that there have been constant denials of the existance of this kit (Wacky radios etc), yet now that it has been proven to have been fitted to the HC Mk2 we have moved from "It doesn't exist" to "It does exist, but that's not how it was used". Given the raft of EMC problems MoD noted in the CPLS "release documentation" (such as it was, being totally non-compliant with the regs) one wonders if this is the "Classified" equipment fitted to ZD576 referred to by a BoI witness. (I've asked this before, but it was at a time when CPLS apparently didn't exist). The BoI didn't explore this further. If they did, they would have been forced to consider, very seriously, the possibility of EMI.

As it was, they merely ordered some EMC testing at Boscombe related to, for example, use of mobile phones. The very fact they had to order this after the event indicates it wasn't done beforehand, as required by the Regs. Yet more evidence that the build standard and understanding of the aircraft was too immature to be released to service. And it also indicates a readiness to accept that passengers, who were not permitted under any circumstances to use such mobile devices, could have used them. (And what is the big no-no in EMC terms on any aircraft - interfering with the fuel computers. Such temporary interference would, in all probability, leave no trace). It is seemingly innocuous issues like this which reveal just where the BoI thought there may be problems; equally it is suspicious why they were not investigated further. I'd love to see the unedited BoI report and the members' notes.

[walter kennedy]

Mmmnice
Apart from the obvious utility it would have in that role, it is specifically mentioned in the manufacturers' glossy brochures - why would you state something like what you did?
More importantly, why is the system never discussed by anyone who has used it on this forum - just for academic interest, even.
Real taboo, this one, isn't it?
Get some nutz.

[A2QFI]

In May I wrote to my newly elected MP, asking about the Government's views on reviewing the findings of the MULL BOI and got a quick acknowledgement. Today I got another letter, attaching one he had received from Nick Harvey MP (Minister of State for the Armed Forces) stating that Liam Fox had confirmed in the Commons on 26th May that there will be an independent review of the evidence and there will be an announcement as to the way forward, shortly.

Mods please delete if already covered and/or posted in the wrong thread!

[flipster]

The words 'independent' and 'judicial' are becoming increasingly rare from govt sources. My MP's letter did not include them - despite me asking for precise calrification of these points. I am concerned that the MoD are getting out tins of white-wash again!

Also, even if any Inquiry is eventually calssified by the govt as 'independent' then that should be cause enough for concern. After all, the new MAA is meant to be independent but it is hardly that.:confused::confused:

[John Purdey]

Flipster. You say.... even if any Inquiry is eventually calssified by the govt as 'independent' then that should be cause enough for concern"
Would you prefer it to say that it will be a biased inquiry?
It is interesting that some folk here seem anxious to condemn the inquiry before iit has even been announced!!!
John Purdey

[tucumseh]

John

Nothing wrong with a little healthy cynicism, especially when MoD is concerned.


It is interesting that some folk here seem anxious to condemn the inquiry before iit has even been announced!!!
As opposed to the ROs who were anxious to condemn the pilots while key evidence was being withheld.

Interestingly, now that some of this key evidence has been released by MoD, or at least one part of MoD, as another continues to deny its existence (a legal person like Haddon-Cave will have a field day with that one), the RAF Star Chamber lobbying seems to be in full flow, trying to divert attention away from ACAS and his cronies, to CA. Let us hope all these officers are interviewed for the first time. I also hope CA offers his opinion on being named by the RAF. I detect a breaking of ranks.

[dalek]

John Purdey,

Governments always initiate honest, open and totally accurate tribunals.
Look at Lord Widgery for example. Shows what can be done once the State interfers with due process.

[flipster]

Dear Mr Purdey,

As you correctly intimate, I am somewhat sceptical but history dictates I am right to do so, as others have pointed out.

On the other hand, I am also convinced that the new defence ministers are determined to do so very much better in this case than did their predecessors. After all, the new govt spent a lot of time in opposition and are far better briefed than ever before - I know that Dr Liam Fox and Nick Harvey come into that category, not to mention David Cameron himself. I just hope they have the sheer bloody-mindedness and courage to ignore the insidious machinations and the self-serving, back-stabbing lobbying of the so-called RAF 'Star Chamber' - which is anything but 'star'. You're not one of them are you, Mr Purdey?

I trust that there are a number of these retired VSOs and 'cold-war warriors' who are not sleeping well at the moment - well, it is all they deserve after denying so many families relief and closure for so long.

However, I am also hopeful that there are relative newcomers to the 'Star Chamber' who do have morals, who wish right to be done and to 'put this one to bed'. Certainly, it is very interesting to watch the 'old guard' of the chamber desparately trying to implicate the senior Civil Servant who was Contoller Aircraft at the time of the Mull Travesty; I don't think that will wash as I think the Civil Service are fed up of such underhand MoD Service tactics. Don't forget, it is the Servicemen who brief the civil service and it is the civil service who brief the politicians - I suspect that the civil service are tired of being lied to.

I will watch with interest.

[John Purdey]

Flipster. Many thanks for your reply. After many years in the Service, I have never heard of a 'Star Chamber', and I certainly could not therefore have been a member of it. Did I miss something? Please say what it is and what is its memberhip. Regards..JP

[Wrathmonk]

With apologies to the film Fight Club, and for making light on this most serious of threads .....

Picture the scene - a dark and dusty basement somewhere in Whitehall. The camera zooms around a motley, and shifty looking bunch, of individuals, settling on ACM Sir Steve Dalton who in a strange, but sinister voice opens the proceedings ....

"Welcome to the RAF 'Star Chamber'. The first rule of the 'Star Chamber' is: you do not talk about the 'Star Chamber'. The second rule of the 'Star Chamber' is: you DO NOT talk about the 'Star Chamber'!"

And so it goes on! ;)

Unfortunately JP will not get to see this as I think I'm still on his banned list!

[tucumseh]

Some of the members signed a letter to the press in January this year. It is clear who drafted it for them as the language is exactly the same as the usual MoD replies. No original thought whatsoever and certainly no idea that the facts they denied were, at the same time, being admitted by other parts of MoD.

In a desperate effort to protect ACAS and others, ACM Dalton also wrote saying that the FADEC software implementation being positively dangerous was known at the time (so wasn’t new evidence). In fact, all he succeeded in doing was admit that MoD knew this. As it was safety critical software, and they did nothing, this amounts to an admission of gross negligence. (We know they did nothing because the AAIB report confirmed the software was still in this original state).

In yet more dissembling, he claimed the status of the software was “factored into operating instructions”. Various inquiries heard witnesses describe those instructions as “incomprehensible”.

One assumes the Dalton Gang (sic) read the reply from fellows of the RAeS and belatedly realised they were ill-advised to admit this negligence. That would perhaps explain the RAF’s latest change of tack – the claim that ACAS (Bagnall) had seemingly delegated his entire authority across (and upwards) to CA and, in fact, the RAF had nothing whatsoever to do with releasing the Mk2 to service.

Another equally dissembling letter, signed by Graydon (CAS at the time) and Alcock (the RAF’s Chief Engineer from 1991-96 – whose reign oversaw the systematic dismantling of the airworthiness system) – oh dear, I won’t go any further. Even a child can see there is a conflict of interest there, with self preservation being their only motive.

[BEagle]

A pint of Old Speckled Hen please, tuc!

You mentioned the name of The Scottish Officer......:uhoh:

[John Purdey]

Wrathmonk. I see it, but I am no better informed. JP

[flipster]

JP

You hear but do not listen
You see but do not comprehend

Beags

I think I must press for a relaxation of the rules regarding the naming of 'that scottish officer'.

I propose that when his name used in conjunction with allegations of abysmal leadership and incompetent high-level regulatory process that borders on the negligent, then the use of his real name is to be encouraged. How say you?

[Chugalug2]

flip, I suspect that when Beags tells tuc:
You mentioned the name of The Scottish Officer......
he is making allusion to the ancient theatrical abhorrence of mention of the "Scottish Play" and the misfortune that results from doing so. I wonder if such misfortune would result from feeling such a Scottish collar, and if so for whom, the feeler or the felt?

[Mmmmnice]

Wally
Re: your 6550 - against my better instincts I posted to correct a misconception you appear to have. All I can say about CPLS is that the clue is in the name. Where it anything else then I'm sure the manufacturer would trumpet it via a suitably grandiose title. As for discussion about it - there's really not much to discuss; nothing more nothing less!

[walter kennedy]

mmmmnice
Shot yourself in the foot with that post didn't you, Einstein? – it is only you lot who are so taciturn about this equipment and it was relatively recently that I was made aware of the awkward name (CPLS in full) for it in the RAF – other NATO countries do not seem to gag at the mention of it.
Perhaps if it wasn't for this crash, more of you may have been more familiar with it – as it is, to not have mentioned in the inquiries such a piece of equipment that was fitted to HC2 Chinooks of the time, well, it would be a very long time before the taboo was raised, wouldn't it? 16 years is not enough.

[Mmmmnice]

'you lot'.....................you don't know me Wally, so I'm not sure how you can pigeonhole me. That's the joy of an anonymous forum - you can go round and round the same old bo(u)y in a meaningless debate about nothing. It's not like I can come down to wherever you purport to be and put you straight over a pint or two...........or are you actually much closer?

[walter kennedy]

I have often been in UK and have been available (Jan-Mar this year for example).
Put me straight? Good luck.

[Robin Clark]

Walter....
...we are still waiting for the list of co-ordinates from which you derived the mythical right turn.....????????.....yawn...

JP........
.....looking back I realise that I failed to answer your 6391........

.....further east along the coast of the mull there are large areas of flat benign shoreline , where they could have safely crossed the coast in marginal visibility.....
......I feel it highly likely that they were heading for one , or thought that they were.....
..I cite two specific locations where the longitude stored in the supertans for waypoint 'A' would only need one digit to be changed (corrupted) to move the waypoint from such a safe beach , to a rocky slope some distance inland , above the height that they were thought to be flying , and slightly closer to them.......(..ie they would arrive there earlier than expected....)......and near to where they ended up....
...(I chose to write in a slightly dramatic and simplistic style so that even non-technical persons like MP's might understand the plot)......
...regards Robin............

..link.. (http://gneiss.dyndns.info/chinook.htm)

[walter kennedy]

Robin Clark
I see you have not worked it out yet.
As this sort of analysis is basic to reconstruction of the flight, I am surprised that no one else on this thread has done it properly - at least you have had a go.
I am tired right now but will post in detail this evening, bar the usual distractions.

[Tandemrotor]

Guys

I am unsure of precisely what is going on here, as I can only read half of the posts. May I make a suggestion??

If you wished to avoid reading the posts of certain people, you would only have to do the following:

Top left hand corner of the page is 'User CP'.

Click on this, and down the left hand side click on 'Buddy/Ignore lists'.

This then allows you to input the names of any posters who you feel constantly post largely irrelevant, or far fetched theories, regarding the accident. Which in turn means you no longer have to read the inane ramblings of the deluded!

At least one of these posters may very well have been asked on numerous occasions to 'move along' and start their own thread. They have persistently chosen not to do so, and sadly bring this thread in to disrepute!

Please don't feed the 'Troll'!

[Robin Clark]

dalek , chinook240 , etc......
..from reading the words of the AAIB I now realise that there is a little more to the story......
..when full emergency power is demanded , the PTIT (power turbine inlet temperature) increases due to the extra fuel being burnt etc...
....when it reaches a set temperature limit , a five second timer is started ...
...after the five seconds have elapsed and the temp. is still high , a dolls eye indicator is actuated on the panel .......
The AAIB do not regard these as reliable indications as they can easily be
jarred in a crash and changed or reset .
..at the same time it is arranged that an electro-mechanical counter will be incremented...........
......but the crash aircraft had one of the older counters which only count in whole minutes....(newer units count in seconds)........
......so emergency power could have been used for up to 59 seconds without changing the counter( if the counter had just passed the point where it was incremented due to a previous event . The numbers are recorded at maintenance time . )

So they could well have established full emergency power in the last 30 seconds of the flight without leaving any recorded evidence of its usage...

...which leads me to my next point .................

..if they did hit the ground almost immediately after crossing the coast as I have previously suggested , and one or both rear undercarriage units were then jammed in the compressed position.........or the rear undercarriage proximity sensors themselves were damaged directly to show that the aircraft was on the ground , it could have limited the control action available to them .......
..normally control function of the DASH actuator is limited to 50% whilst on the ground .....The cyclic stick only has 2 inches of rear movement instead of the more normal 4 inches (and one inch left or right ) ..........
(I realise that the AFCS's may ignore the undercarriage sensor/'s due to high airspeed......???????????.......).
...the normal collective/thrust range may have still been available to them ......but would it have increased forward speed more than rate of climb if they were restricted in the rearward range of cyclic stick.....??????.....so that they were limited to cruise ROC and could not climb out of trouble.....??????..

rgds Robin.....

[John Purdey]

Robin. PLease see my post at 4065. Regards JP

[Chugalug2]

Robin Clark:
..from reading the words of the AAIB I now realise that there is a little more to the story......
Now ain't that the understatement to cap all understatements! The answer to all your speculations and propositions is that nobody knows why this aircraft crashed, not me, not you, not JP, nobody! One of the primary reasons for that is that the accident investigation was not conducted by the AAIB or any other professional air accident investigator, ie par for the course for a military accident. What wasn't par for the course for this accident was that the aircraft was Grossly Unairworthy prior to the crash, as were all other HC2's at that time. That was not revealed, discovered or considered by the BoI. It was not mentioned in the AOC's and AOC in C's Finding. It was not mentioned by the RAF or MOD to the FAI, the Coroner, or the HoL or HoC committees. Perhaps the fact that the authority responsible for supplying this duff aircraft to the Royal Air Force was also the authority responsible for enforcing the Airworthiness Regulations had a bearing? If the regulations had been followed then the aircraft could not have entered RAF service in that unairworthy condition. Whether or not it would still have crashed, I don't know, nor do you, nor JP, nobody! Unless....unless of course this accident were indeed to be properly investigated yet. By that I don't mean in a book, on the tele, in the papers, but by a professional air accident investigator, you know- someone like the AAIB who would add quite a lot to the story if allowed to, I'll bet!

[Mmmmnice]

Robin - the cyclic is not physically limited to 2" aft on the ground - the limit is imposed to prevent droop stop damage when the collective is in the 'ground detent' (almost fully down) position

Likewise limited DASH authority on the ground is a bit of a red herring if considering control movement available

may I now continue with my lines?......'I must not feed WK, I must not feed WK'.......'

[cazatou]

Chugalug2

Ref your 6573 in respect of the AAIB.

I am sure your assertion that the cause of the crash was not investigated by the AAIB would raise the eyebrows of Mr Cable, Mr Parkinson and Mr Smart who all gave evidence to the HOL Committee in respect of the AAIB's role in the Accident Investigation.

[dervish]

I am sure your assertion that the cause of the crash was not investigated by the AAIB would raise the eyebrows of Mr Cable, Mr Parkinson and Mr Smart who all gave evidence to the HOL Committee in respect of the AAIB's role in the Accident Investigation.


That's not the way I read Chugalug's post. My understanding is that the AAIB were on the periphery in that relevant information was withheld from them. Also, having read some but admittedly not all of the thread, it seems some of the AAIB's conclusions were ignored and others were twisted to suit MoD's theory. I think someone mentioned the toggle switch on the Tans that AAIB said was off, which is probably quite important as MoD's case is built on their assertion that the Tans and the rest of the nav was in perfect working order and displaying information correctly.

I think one of the points being made was that the AAIB, or at least Mr Cable, would probably welcome the opportunity to give further evidence to any new review now they now more of the facts.

Sorry Chugalug if this has stepped on your toes.