Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[walter kennedy]

BOAC
I am very disappointed with you – especially given your pedigree – where have your balls gone?
Can you not resist the “group think” that has so constrained debate here?
Do not think emotionally like women – work through things rationally, like men used to do.
Let us go through your emotional responses – see the elephant in the room and deal with it:
<<...a crew would not sense something was wrong from visual cues, abort the mission and report back...>>
have I been somewhat too subtle about my descriptions of that localised weather, visual illusion, spatial orientation, my humble opinion after years of coastal navigation and being particularly familiar with the NW of Scotland from sea and air and hill top? - has something stopped you from calling my bluff when I suggested some years back that anyone interested in this case should go up there in the summer and, late in the afternoon to early evening, with a southerly blowing (most of the time, it's the prevailing wind there) you'd get the chance to witness those all so common conditions – if you cant afford a plane, just go out in a boat.
The lack of visual cues as they approached closely is the crux of the matter.
Those conditions that day would have been predictable with a forecast a few days ahead so much so that they could have been counted on – weeks ahead, they could have been expected, at that time of day, at that time of year.


<<the weather would provide EXACTLY the right orographic cloud at exactly the right time>>
The orographic cloud, so common there, did not have to be “exactly” right – it just had to obscure the higher topographical features – as it so often does – the subtlety is the ground hugging mist running up slopes that are devoid of recognisable features – with a strong wind, that develops hundreds of feet below the start of the oro cloud as I have described previously and have posted links to a video I took of its formation.


<<the crew would have pressed on at cruise speed towards a 'murky Mull' relying solely on a reading fed into some black box by persons unknown.>>
Chinooks can stop on a sixpence, so 150 kts should be viewed in context – but yes, one would have expected prudence without any local guidance – which is why I originally predicted some source of DME. The PRC112 is intrinsically reliable and very accurate, well used by that time by several countries. If you were flying VFR and something was giving you a measurement that you expected to be accurate, then you should have expected to stay out of contact with the mist – the American unit based at Macrihanish at the time would have been well versed in the use of the ground equipment and willing to help out their friends – a special relationship that needs lots of Preparation H.


<<Ask yourself also who tasked it? Who authorised it?>>
Well we would all like to know these things – have you (collectively speaking – want to pitch it right) accepted for 16 years the spin we have had that Flt Lt Tapper (by all accounts a conservative and responsible officer up until this point) pushed himself for this sortie, shortcutting authorisation, briefing, communication in general, and flouting common sense? – he simply had to have had support for this sortie from higher up that has thus far not been acknowledged by the RAF.


<<... the 'probabilities' of 'getting away' with such... >> it was a free shot with a better than 50% chance of success – doubtless there would have been a messier plan B.


<<... known sympathies for the IRA amongst our US 'friends'... .>> are you aware of how much the powers-that-be in London wanted to wash their hands of the NI problem? Even the PM and cabinet ministers publicly expressed the view that they wished NI would just go away – but this team on board that helicopter that day were not enthusiastic about the proposed peace process, did not think concessions to terrorists were necessary, and had they got to Ft George they would have set in motion their plans for a hard line, including mass round-ups – the bargaining position of the IRA would have been weakened but, more importantly for our internationalist political leaders, two of the last nationalist enclaves in Europe (Ulster and Ireland) would continue. So perhaps the scale of action and capability of potential perpetrators could be greater than the odd sympathiser.


<< … the gross injustice dealt to the deceased crew ... >> what superlative would you ascribe to the verdict if at the very least an exercise went wrong that had not even been disclosed and it was another party's fault? - further, what would be left in your vocabulary if the action had been wilful and organised?
Goes beyond words, doesn't it?

[dalek]

Walter,

Go back and read BOAC 4740.
If the plan is to kill everybody on board the aircraft it is a p**s poor plan.
The aircraft is approaching the coast with a visibility of one to two nms and the lighthouse area is clearly visible (Holbrook). I agree with you that the conditions are conducive to Visual Illusion, but people only succumb to illusion some of the time. Surely these master assassins, who have never come to light, could have devised a more foolproof plan.

Now, if you said that someone on the Mull, who was working with the aircraft, switched on the beacon in the wrong place and the subsequent Visual Illusion contributed to the accident. That I could believe.
But where is the evidence?

[BOAC]

Walter - I'm sorry, but my balls are aching. Good luck with your endeavours and I hope the local police take note.

My conclusion of around an 8% chance of success remains, and my James Bond imagination will not stretch that far.

[walter kennedy]

As I've said several times before - you dont have to accept the whole "conspiracy" thing - but just in case it happened, it needed exploring fully, however unpallatable, because the implications are so serious. In doing so it emerges that there was a lot more that could have been established regarding the circumstances of this crash - analysis pointed to a deliberate close approach, etc leading to a conclusion that .... CPLS was used ... get the picture?
Sorry if my little wind-up caused offence - still hung over from that rather nice winter ale :(
Now why haven't you lot contributed positively to getting the basic intentions understood? - just sniping when anyone pushes an idea forward - shame.
Who exactly has been pushing this idea of saying nothing in the hope that their names will be cleared on the basis of there not being enough known to justify the verdict? I think they would have been cleared years ago if more had been exposed of what they were doing there.
You have to exercise freedom of speech otherwise it may wither away and not be there when you really need it.

[walter kennedy]

Dalek
Evidence?
There were many parameters preserved which, combined with knowledge of local area and relating it to practical navigation, pointed to a deliberate approach (can't go through it all just now - makes for a 50 page report).
Use of a particular system was predicted as the only rational explanation and it was only subsequently that the fit of this kit was confirmed.
In science, the discovering of something that the theory predicted is termed QED -sort of proves the theory.
You see, there was just too much data to hide the truth - another reason why it was so important to put a lid on inquiry by blaming the pilots "beyond any doubt whatsoever".
Look back at the original story put out by the RAF - at the very least, analysis of the available data rubbishes that story. Does objective analysis constitute "evidence"? Perhaps not, but it should allow an inquiry to ask the right people the right questions.

[BOAC]

but it should allow an inquiry to ask the right people the right questions - I don't think anyone would dispute that,WK. May I confirm you:

Have placed your 'evidence' before Lord Philip?
Whether you have been told you will be called?

[dalek]

Walter,

I no longer knock your theory.
If CPLS was fitted it could be used to generate a range to the coastline.
An incorrect range generated by CPLS could be just a dangerous as one generated by TANS.
Have you submitted your 50 page analysis to Lord Phillips for him to have it examined by experts?
Do you accept that an equally valid reason that may have been used to place all of the blame on the Pilots was the RTS / Airworthiness disaster?

[walter kennedy]

<<An incorrect range generated by CPLS could be just a dangerous as one generated by TANS.>>
Not really - Flt Lt Tapper was well aware of the potential inaccuracy of the STANS of the time - I have argued for a long time that they would not have relied upon it as close in as waypoint change.
The CPLS system interrogates a (back then) PRC112 which was effectively a portable DME - intrinsically reliable and the range very accurate (if you were getting a return and it was of the right order, you would expect it to be very accurate).
But it had to be where the pilot was expecting it to be - not 1/2 mile or more further up the hill.
It was more than just a range thing - don't forget you could home in on it (you got an approximate bearing) and with their oblique approach to the coast, this would have accounted for the track they took on that last leg.

Just for academic interest, has anyone here ever used the air version oif the Clansman (340) for VHF homing in a Mk1 Chinook? - How was it?

[BOAC]

Fine, Walter, butHave placed your 'evidence' before Lord Philip? andHave you submitted your 50 page analysis to Lord Phillips for him to have it examined by experts?

[Tallsar]

WK....re the Clansman homing....used it several times on the Mk1....it was OK,but there was a major interference/feeback problem on the CCS system when it was in use, and if you didn't set all the other volume controls correctly. If I recall correctly, it didn't have a RtS as a result.

[walter kennedy]

Yes, much obliged, fits in with what I've heard.
The Americans included it in the 47D (different VHF/FM radio that did same job) but I don't know if it was the result of a "get well" program from earlier Chinooks.

[BOAC]

Walter - if you are expecting a shred of credibility on this forum, answer the questions!

[MrBernoulli]

Walt,

Come on chap, the questions are clear and easy to give replies to! Why the silence?

One-word answers will do!

[dalek]

Walter,

I quite agree that Flt Lt Tapper would not have placed much reliance in a STANS he had little faith in. That is probably why Mr Cable found it switched off. As we have discussed before, that could not have happened on impact. It almost certainly was switched off deliberately by one of the crew.

If JT had little faith in STANS, why on earth would he place any at all in a piece of equipment which was recently fitted, he had probably never used before, and had no release to service.

Portable DME, Intrinsically reliable?
Are you stating fact or is that a wild stab in the dark?
The DME receiver element of the old X Channel TACANS in the 130K was notoriously unreliable. In the early 90's it generated many serious incidents.
One aircraft in Bardufoss Fjord broke cloud with the mountain in front, on a LLZR/DME approach.
After that we had one of the bad TACANS replaced with a more modern X/Y Channel receiver. It was far more reliable, but still generated the odd incident.

[walter kennedy]

Dalek
<<Portable DME, Intrinsically reliable?
Are you stating fact or is that a wild stab in the dark?>>
From a systems view, it was like plugging a GPS into the cigarette lighter socket in your car - if what you got made sense and was of the right order then it was, from what I've heard and would expect, more accurate than radar.
But why ask me? - there must be those around who have used it - try persuading them to make a comment on the open forum - good luck!

[John Purdey]

BOAC. Please do not wake Walter from his reverie, he is giving us all too much amusement. JP

[dalek]

Walter,
The old XChannel TACAN was equally simple.
1. Switch on.
2. Select T/R for Range and Bearing or Rec for Bearing Only.(Good if you didn't want people to know you were interrogating their beacon).
3. Check Morse ident to confirm you had right beacon.

The range you obtained was accurate to 0.1%. Much better than most radars, at ranges up to around 100nms(ish).
The problem was, sometimes (fairly frequently) the range you got was plain wrong.
No problem when the error was large, because, DR, Mapping Radar and the Omega VLF System would highlight the error.
The problem came on VOR/ LLZR/DME approaches when you were descending
to very low MDA's using step down fixes. An error of 2nms could kill you and your backup aids were not good enough to pick up this small error.

We got around the problem on the C130 by fitting a DME that very rarely did this, and a certified GPS/IN.

Unless the CPLS was 100% foolproof. And like me, you do not seem to know,
the crew had to rely on GPS fed TANS, which they distrusted and switched off, or visual assessment of their DME reading.
There was no fallback to Radar Ranging.

[walter kennedy]

There is no substitute for direct experience with the CPLS of the time.
It would be of general interest to all, I would have thought.
But no one at all has come forward on this forum to describe their experience of its performance.
What are people afraid of in a land of free speech? - a Wallyleaks fiasco? No one is going to sell you to the Americans for describing this system - the manufacturers have claimed performance for years that does not seem to have been questioned by US forces who have used it for years and have had thousands and thousands of these sets.
I don't think any of you here would talk about a magnetic compass if you thought you weren't supposed to. :rolleyes:

Got anything constructive other than smart quips, JP? Surely you could dig around and give Dalek what he wants? Some of us are trying to get to the bottom of this and in doing so we have at the very least exposed how pathetic and baseless the findings against the pilots were - something the likes of you could have contributed to years ago if you had the mind to.
Just keep running around in circles on the innocuous approved areas, eh?

[John Purdey]

Walter. As BOAC says, please answer the question. Regards JP

[Airborne Aircrew]

JP:

I know this doesn't add to the conversation and I'm somewhat in agreement with your "harassment" of Walter but, (having seen a pattern), I'm fairly sure you should have been a Gunner. Simply because, odds are, you are a much better sniper than you ever were a pilot. :rolleyes:

[tucumseh]

much better sniper

No chance. Strictly Small Bore.


Walter. The onus has always been on MoD to answer legitimate questions and, now, on Lord Philip to ask them. May I suggest you give him your information. MoD have clearly stated CPLS was not fitted. You have a complete physical description and the Station number it was located at. If he discovers it was fitted, he will not be impressed about such a lie and should dig deeper. At which point the subject would be "new" evidence, which MoD have also denied the existence of. It may not prove your case, but would introduce even more doubt; which should help achieve the primary aim.

Dealing with the conduct of the Full Bore snipers will hopefully follow!

[BOAC]

To all:
I have not pursued this line since 8/12 as I received a PM from 'Walter'. I have accepted his promise that he will 'let everyone know' before Christmas and at his request have postponed my call, but left him in no doubt of my position. At this time I accept the assurances he has given me. It will not be difficult to establish whether in fact what I called for has been done

Not for me to halt the cries for answers, but I would hope we could find other things to look at before then, and of course if things do not happen as expected, we are free to re-assess our own judgement.

[bast0n]

AA and Tuc

You may not always agree with JP but can you leave the personality jibes out of this forum.

Thanks.

[John Purdey]

bastOn. Many thanks, but these folk are merely following the golden rulei of incompetent contention, ie if you don't like the message, then attack the messenger. With all good wishes, JP

[Airborne Aircrew]

JP:

but these folk are merely following the golden rulei of incompetent contention, ie if you don't like the message, then attack the messenger.People, glass houses and stones spring to mind...

BOAC. Please do not wake Walter from his reverie, he is giving us all too much amusement. JPJust because you don't like his message... :=

[dalek]

What is a golden rulei?
Is it something rich people measure with?

[bast0n]

Dalek

What is a golden rulei?

It is of course one of the Araucaria family of conifers!

AA

but these folk are merely following the golden rulei of incompetent contention, ie if you don't like the message, then attack the messenger.

You are doing it aga:=in

I don't think that JP has ever been personally rude. His "attacks" have always been aimed at the views of the messanger rather than the messengers themselves.

Shall we carry on, politely, rubbishing each others views....................?

PS Why can we not have a spell checker on here. When we all get over excited our spilling seams to go two ritshot.............

[Airborne Aircrew]

Baston:

PS Why can we not have a spell checker on here. When we all get over excited our spilling seams to go two ritshot.............

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html) checks your spelling for you... :ok:

[Robin Clark]

Just a reminder as per my post 6641 , page 333 , the only relevant met.information available to the crew apon which to base a choice of route were the TAF and METAR for Machrihanish , ten nautical miles north of the lighthouse . There was no mention of the Mull itself ,(which is specifically the southern tip of the Kintyre peninsular ) , and anything you read here to suggest otherwise is an interpretation made by others after the event from observations made later in the day . Effectively an aftercast......

............whether or not you think they were using waypoint A at all , as represented by the guidance of the GPS , they were certainly flying towards it , without any turns , and passed East abeam of it shortly before the major impact .......

..some quotes from Walter...

Flt Lt Tapper was well aware of the potential inaccuracy of the STANS of the time - I have argued for a long time that they would not have relied upon it as close in as waypoint change.........

and of the CPLS.......
(you got an approximate bearing) ...slight conflict there.....even you do not think the CPLS is better..???..

I cannot believe that anyone would stop using a GPS guidance in favour of a simple DME ........Trying to overfly any point via DME alone is impossible in a fixed wing a/c , as the correction needed increases as you approach closer....and you have to mentally judge he rate of change of distance/eta.....in a helicopter it is hard but you can cheat by going to a hover and moving sideways to see if the range changes . Using a VOR/DME or GPS it is still hard as you still do not have the time to react to the needle or display , I try this almost every time go flying , looking down to see where the VOR really is . I have to challenge Walter to ask if he has ever tried this.??.....the only practical way you can use DME alone for nav. is flying a DME ARC ......

The fatal last few seconds of flight actually took them over a small cottage , and I think that a possible and far more likely theory , is that they could see this cottage way up on the hillside (although the top of the lighthouse (40 feet high ) was hidden )..........Rather than use radio , anyone based in this cottage could point a strobe light at the approaching helicopter to emulate the lighthouse proper and lure them to the wrong place (for the conspiracy theorists ) ..... or alternatively (for the realists) if anyone were taking flash photos near the cottage at the relevant time it could have been a simple mistake ....if the flash were powerful enough to be visible..........that should be easy to check as it is known who was present that day.......

rgds Robin....

[walter kennedy]

dalek
I hope its nothing like a golden rivet :E

Perhaps Robin could tell us about golden rivets?

[tucumseh]

One has to remember the GPS / SuperTANS combination presented error codes that were “meaningless”. That is, if the system displayed a faulty the crew had no way of knowing what to do or what it meant, so would in all probability have to ignore the system or switch it off. The resultant distraction is self evident.

The GPS unit had a number of faults. Time of Day output was faulty, as was the power supply; both fairly fundamental issues in a GPS system.

Neither the GPS nor SuperTANS was cleared for use.

The SuperTANS installation was vulnerable to EMC problems.

Despite the above, MoD’s position remains that both systems were perfectly serviceable. Despite warning crews not to rely solely on the systems, MoD’s case relies solely on them.

I can’t reconcile these facts. Too many problems to be absolutely certain the system was working correctly and displaying the correct information.

[walter kennedy]

Tuc
The problem of concern with the SuperTANS at the time was not interference, etc but fundamental accuracy.
Robin C
CPLS gave very accurate range but was limited to about +/_ 4 degrees in bearing - good enough to home in on someone you wanted to pick up.
There's plenty of info on it - just got to read, understand, and not go off half cock.
Were you on about a co-located VOR/DME?, they're a bit better for you to try.

[tucumseh]

The problem of concern with the SuperTANS at the time was not interference, etc but fundamental accuracy


Walter, I think you should read the whole post.

EMI was an acknowledged problem.

What would cause your fundamental inaccuracy? SuperTANS is a simple rubbish in, rubbish out calculator. Inaccuracies could be caused by sensor input error, failure, signal interrupt or data corruption; such as having a faulty GPS, which I mentioned and MoD admitted (and yet continue to deny!).

Also, the SuperTANS may be receiving accurate information, but if the display is faulty or damaged (or, as in the Chinook, very difficult to see in bright light), then the information is useless as it is not presented to the crew.

You post as if I am completely wrong, but in fact we are in total accord on this point.

[dalek]

Off on my Christmas Hols to Costa Rica tomorrow. A little Marlin fishing to catch up on.
John Purdey and Cazatou,
Don't you find it ironic that the Day evidence to the HOL, which I watched on the Parliament Channel, relies entirely on RACAL STANS analysis?
Equipment which the crew were told not to rely on.
Was it lies, ineptitude or just very poor briefing by his staff?
A very Merry Christmas to you all. Back New Year

[walter kennedy]

Tuc
I believe that Flt Lt T's concerns were about the positional accuracy - your other points may have compounded this.
Further, the STANS CDU was indeed hard to see - but all the mavigator had to do was feed it to the HP's horizontal situation indicator (HoSI).
Now this may be news to many of you, but as far as I have seen, that the STANS was most commonly used via the main navigation display (the HoSI) didn't get a mention at any of the inquiries.
There was some little reference to the "steer meter" - calculating bank and displaying on the AI - but nothing about range & bearing on the main one!!
Nor did any of the pilots who visit this forum mention it.
How can this be? It's not a secret in civil aviation or in US military documentation.
No wonder debate never got as far as how GPS and Doppler data together generate bearing, range, and track by the time the data for a waypoint gets to the HoSI.

BOAC
Part has been sent (a while ago) and the rest will follow this week - just have to wait now won't we?

[chinook240]

that the STANS was most commonly used via the main navigation display (the HoSI) didn't get a mention at any of the inquiries

I would imagine the reason it hasn't been mentioned is because the RNS252 did not have any connection or input into the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI).

[walter kennedy]

240
Thank you
that explains a lot
If we had had clear info like this years ago it would have saved so much time being wasted.

[walter kennedy]

240 committed himself to an opinion on the avionics of interest which should have triggered off interesting and informative exchange of ideas such that a common understanding of the navigation systems could be reached - what should have been a starting point years ago.
Gentlemen, the silence is deafening - don't be shy of putting your understanding forward, some systems are hard to grasp and you, as aircrew, needed to use them well, not build/fix/tweek them. One of my ex's had a favourite saying when I went into unecessary detail on, say, a car fault - "Tell me the time - not how the clock works!".
Problem is in this case, to understand their options, we do need to understand the nav systems.

[tucumseh]

we do need to understand the nav systems

I dare say the crew thought much the same. Flt Lt Tapper had to resort to visiting Racal to try to work out SuperTANS. (An extraordinary event - the details of which should be available in both Racal and MoD files). He probably found it disconcerting to be told the Error messages were “meaningless” and that there was no longer any indication of how accurate GPS was – yet the same system in the Mk1 was apparently still ok. He probably wanted to know what changes had been made during Mk2 conversion, as no-one in MoD had bothered telling him. Given that single simple fact, under MoD’s own rules the aircraft should not have been released to service. That is why any inquiry should always start with this question to ACAS – “Why?”.

[walter kennedy]

<... that there was no longer any indication of how accurate GPS was ...>>
I believe that was only the case when the Doppler system was not functioning (and I mean not functioning/working as opposed to not being selected) - as I believe, even with GPS mode selected, the system continually compared the GPS position with the Doppler position and flagged it up if the discrepancy was beyond a certain amount (makes sense, don't it?).
Even with GPS mode selected, I believe that for generating steering guidance the system still took several parameters from the Doppler side of the STANS - I'm travelling just now and so can't getback to my usual computer to dig out the stuff so this from memory just now - perhaps this input is not known about by those who use the system to navigate - even if you are in GPS mode (as is my understanding) and have STANS (or what ever the nomenclature is on the button - DGPS/TACNAV - I haven't seen an HC2 HoSI mode select panel close up) selected on your HoSI there is an influence from the Doppler system in what gets to the HoSI.
Don't forget, the GPS of the time, apart from the odd glitch and low update frequency (once a sec?), was lagging about 2 seconds.
I hope 240 was not trying to say that STANS as a whole was not selectable to feed the HoSI! - if that were the case, I'd have to agree with one of the popular mantras "the cause of this crash will never be known" - how the HC2 was navigated would never be known!!!
How about talking this aspect through? - getting that overall systems understanding?
Please Tuc et al, don't deflect straight away with airworthiness and interference etc - there is clear need to focus on the basic nav just now - or no one will be able to follow the arguments.

[tucumseh]

Walter, not for the first time you launch into a reply without ascertaining facts or reading source documents.

From the Release to Service, extant at time of crash;Para 2.2 "GPS has not yet been declared operational by the US DoD and accuracy is therefore not guaranteed to any level. Even when GPS is declared operational by the US, accuracy of TNL8000 GPS (the system fitted to Mk2) could degrade substantially without any indications to the crew".

Para 2.3 (a) "In addition to para 2.2 above, the GPS is highly susceptible to jamming of which the only indication is loss of GPS..... The "ERR" figure displayed, which has conventionally been taken as a measure of GPS performance, is meaningless and so no indication of the accuracy of the GPS is available to the user".

There is no equivalent statement in the Mk1 RTS. The only reasonable assumption aircrew could make from this fact is that something had changed in the Mk2 that did not affect Mk1. As they were expected to operate a dual Mk1/Mk2 fleet, it was incumbent upon MoD to eliminate this uncertainty by finding out why there was a difference, agree what action to take and advise aircrew accordingly.


They didn't. They simply inserted a ludicrous statement that the "ERR" message was "meaningless". To me, that is a potential distraction, human factors risk, call it what you will. As I have said before, it must mean something, even if it is that the installation design is crap.


As you say;

there is clear need to focus on the basic nav just nowTo me, it is a pretty basic failing if the system MoD's argument relies upon is "not guaranteed to any level". A logical extension of that argument is that Wratten and Days conclusions cannot be sustained to any level.

[chinook240]

I hope 240 was not trying to say that STANS as a whole was not selectable to feed the HoSI

Err, yes, I am.

how the HC2 was navigated would never be known!!!


I hate to say it, but the same way we do today, and when the ac was introduced in 81. Hope that isn't too scary for everyone.

[BOAC]

I hate to say it, but the same way we do today, and when the ac was introduced in 81. Hope that isn't too scary for everyone. - yes, why some think you need an 'HoSI' to 'navigate' at low level I do not know.

[tucumseh]

With apologies to Boscombe and MoD(PE), when I said it was incumbent upon MoD to resolve the uncertainties I mentioned, I should of course have said “RAF”. It was they who said the aircraft should fly, not the other two. Boscombe were trying to resolve matters. They were awaiting necessary information from MoD(PE).

Walter, if you want to focus on the basic Nav, may I suggest you start with a list of what Navigation equipments you mean. In fact, three distinctly different lists;

1.What MoD say was fitted
2.What we know was fitted
3.What you think was fitted

(They get progressively longer).

Then ask a basic question. Of the equipments listed, which were cleared for use during flight?

None.

Analyse that.

[Chugalug2]

Walter, I have no knowledge or experience of the Chinook of whatever mark or of its nav kit, but I think that you are suffering from a fundamental misconception about military tactical flying, be it rotary or fixed wing. So far you have encouraged us to believe that these pilots slavishly followed the DME from the wacky radio counting down until it counted them down into a hillside. Now you propose that they slavishly followed an HSI, whatever it could or could not be coupled to. As others have repeatedly pointed out the navigation of such low level sorties was, and I suspect still is, Mk1 eyeball, map, and pilot navigation (1 in 60 rule etc).
The Hercules K model was stuffed full of avionics, mostly UK made to the extent that half the aircraft's initial cost was in pounds Sterling. We had Decca map displays that purportedly told you where you were on a badly distorted roller map, providing of course you first told it where it was beforehand and were in the area of coverage. We had doppler roller map displays that consumed a fortune in charts as the Co-pilots had first to perform Origami on them and discard the excess. With the inherent drift involved it was very much advisory only in its authority.
In short you were/are responsible for knowing where you are and what is ahead, not the bloke wandering around the Mull with a backpack, not the shysters who flog dodgy kit to the MOD, not even the MOD for buying it, you are! I do not share the theory that this accident was nav based, illustrious though its proponents may be. This aircraft was a death trap, that was set when it was granted an RTS into RAF service, and was very likely sprung seconds before it killed 29 people.

[vecvechookattack]

All this gumpf regarding Supertans and GPS is a massive rabbit hole you are all disappearing down. They had a map....they were trained in navigation....they were not relying solely on GPS to navigate ...so why were they lost, in cloud and below the safety altitude? Poor airmanship - thats why.

[tucumseh]

Vec

Even if your last statement were true, your post acknowledges the possibility of these uncleared nav kits being inaccurate/faulty/defective etc.

MoD's case is built on them being fully serviceable (they were not) and able to be used in the final moments (one was switched off).

That rather proves the point of those whose sole aim is overturn the verdict. There may have been poor airmanship. That there was prior negligence does not make you wrong. The difference is that this prior negligence is demonstrable fact.

[vecvechookattack]

I totally agree with you. I have said all along that these aviators were not grossly negligent. They displayed poor airmanship, poor captaincy and were unprofessional. But they were not grossly negligent.

[Chugalug2]

tuc:
There may have been poor airmanship.
vecvec:
They displayed poor airmanship, poor captaincy and were unprofessional.
Spot the difference?

[Bertie Thruster]

I can't see any evidence to suggest:

They displayed poor airmanship, poor captaincy and were unprofessional


low flying with passengers. ?


they didn't plan the sortie sufficiently, the brief was poor, the plan was bad, the nav route was poor, they should have turned around??

Are you joking?

[vecvechookattack]

can't see any evidence to suggest:

Quote:
They displayed poor airmanship, poor captaincy and were unprofessional

They were in poor weather...lost....low flying with passengers.... they flew their aircraft into the ground...they didn't plan the sortie sufficiently, the brief was poor, the plan was bad, the nav route was poor, they should have turned around, they should have ....they should have.... they should have... they should have done a lot of things differently.... but that doesn't make them grossly negligent.

[Bertie Thruster]

I can't see any evidence to suggest:

They displayed poor airmanship, poor captaincy and were unprofessional

[vecvechookattack]

"they had brought upon themselves an emergency, a crisis of time"



"On approaching the deteriorating weather near the Mull, they had two choices. If they intended and were able to maintain flight under Visual Flight Rules, they should have slowed down, turned away or turned back. If they planned to continue their flight under Instrument Flight Rules, they should have climbed to above Safety Altitude well before they approached the Mull. If they were forced to transition to Instrument Flight Rules because they inadvertently entered cloud when close to the Mull, they should have made a rapid climb to at least Safety Altitude at maximum power and best climbing speed, while also turning away from the Mull."..........But they were not grossly negligent. This thread is all about overturning the verdict of gross negligence.

We, the undersigned, believe that there is no evidence to support a verdict of Gross Negligence against Flt Lt Rick Cook and Flt Lt Jon Tapper.

[Bertie Thruster]

OK. I understand that. It's just I thought you said:

they didn't plan the sortie sufficiently, the brief was poor, the plan was bad, the nav route was poor,

[tucumseh]

Vec

As I said, you may be right, although as a non-pilot I sense a slight contradiction between “IFR” and the possibility you mention of them only having a map – but that is from a viewpoint which takes into account none of the nav kit was cleared for use anyway.

they had brought upon themselves an emergency, a crisis of time

But another crisis of time was created long before 2.6.94, ignored for many months and at the last minute the “solution” was to set aside every single mandated regulation in the book and issue an RTS. What was the “emergency” that caused ACAS to make such a decision? After all, he still had the Mk1 – the aircrews’ preferred aircraft.

The difference is that, while the crew had seconds to deal with whatever occurred in ZD576, the Air Staffs had many months to ponder what to do when told the Mk2 should not be released to service. I’m not sure if they did any “pondering”, but the gross negligence, maladministration and failure of Duty of Care inherent in their decision is self evident.

[bast0n]

Bertie

I can't see any evidence to suggest:



Gosh..............................

[Chugalug2]

bast0n:
Gosh..............................
Gosh, bast0n, gosh? Why are you so dumbfounded at the suggestion that there is no evidence that:
They displayed poor airmanship, poor captaincy and were unprofessional
Where is the evidence of that? It is a statement not evidence. This BoI was notable for its lack of evidence. There is a strong suspicion that it deliberately turned its back on what evidence was available and failed utterly in its duty which was to discover why this aircraft crashed rather than stick to its brief of not discovering it. We still don't know why this aircraft crashed. What we do know is that this aircraft was grossly unairworthy from the day it became an HC2 until it killed 29 people. That minor bit of evidence was ignored by the BoI and the Reviewing Officers. They displayed a poor sense of duty, poor accident investigation and were unprofessional. There you are, another statement for you!

[Tandemrotor]

This BoI was notable for its lack of evidence

The key to this case. Of course also why the president of the BOI felt it was not correct to criticise the captain for human errors, and impossible to criticise the copilot.

It was not possible to recreate the sequence of events leading up to the accident.

Opinionated individuals can have whatever opinions they like. Ultimately they are only that 'opinions.' Which of course are based on very little, if they can't be backed up by reliable facts!

Only Lord Phillip's is of any interest whatsoever.

[bast0n]

Ghugaz

Gosh, bast0n, gosh? Why are you so dumbfounded at the suggestion that there is no evidence that:


Are you assuming that my Gosh meant that or the opposite? Without any firm evidence....................

[Chugalug2]

Well then tell us bast0n, do you think that there was such evidence, or do you prefer the insouciant position, shared by some of your "shipmates", that this is a crab affair and thus food for crab baiting? Do you think for example that the BoI verdict of pilot error was a sufficient explanation as to why two Naval Sea Kings collided, killing all on board, or is that none of our business?
As to the lack of firm evidence re your position on this accident, it will probably never emerge, thus I admit to an assumption. The evidence of a cover up relating to the subject accident of this thread is a different matter. The truth will out, sooner or later, of that I am certain.

[bast0n]

Chugaz

The SK collision result was a cover up of the worst kind - but for some reason did not get put in the public eye as I believe it should.

[Chugalug2]

The Public Eye could still be caught bast0n, just as it was for the Hercules, Nimrod and Chinook, ie via this very forum. They all had one thing in common, subversion of the UK Military Airworthiness Regulations that therein cost 53 lives. The Sea King tragedy of course cost the lives of a further 7.....

[bast0n]

Chugaz

I do hope so...............

[John Purdey]

No names and no packdrill, but there would be less heat and more light in this long running discussion if posters were to study the definition of 'negligence' With all good wishes for the seasonb, JP

[BOAC]

Are you happy with the RAF definitions of excusable, culpable and gross?

[Tandemrotor]

Or indeed the meaning of the phrase "absolutely no doubt whatsoever."

[BOAC]

Verily I thinketh not

[tucumseh]

“[/URL]conduct that is culpable because it falls short of what a reasonable person would do to protect another [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual"] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior)individual from foreseeable risks of harm”.

I believe it reasonable to expect officers to exercise both their Duty of Care toward colleagues and legal obligations to PUS and Secretary of State by adhering to regulations – particularly when they have signed a declaration they have met these obligations but know they have not.

I know there are many who do not believe this. Various AMSOs. CDP. DGAS2. DGSM. DPRD. 5 Ministers. But I am entitled to my opinion.


Are you familiar with the legal concept of "prior negligence"?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

No names and no packdrill, but there would be less heat and more light in this long running discussion if posters were to study the definition of 'negligence' With all good wishes for the seasonb, JP

Best wishes to you as well, although there is a certain irony in your notion that some others on here have a closed mind with regards to some aspects of this case :ok:

[John Blakeley]

JP,

Given your background I am surprised that you are going down this road again. The simplest legal definition of "Gross Negligence" (for that, and not negligence, was the AOCinC's finding) I can find is "An action or an omission in reckless disregard of the consequences to the safety or property of another."

Thus we have the situation that there is an alleged and unproven finding of gross negligence against the pilots. This is based, in my opinion and that of many others, on a totally inadequate and flawed BoI, and ultimately speculation as to what might have happened, with many "facts" throwing doubt on the basis of that speculation. This should be compared with the easily provable fact, ultimately admitted at 4* level, that the RAF's airworthiness system had totally failed thanks to deliberate "actions and omissions in reckless disregard of the consequences to flight safety and fitness for purpose" accepted, and even led, at the most senior level in the RAF. I believe these actions and omissions resulted or contributed to the loss not just of the Chinook, but the Tornado shot down by a Patriot missile, the Sea King collision in the Gulf. the loss of the Hercules XV 179 and, without any shadow of doubt whatsoever, the Nimrod loss at Kandahar (which has now I suggest directly contributed to the RAF losing its maritime patrol capability).

Where do you see the gross negligence lying?

JB

[Cows getting bigger]

Maybe now is a good time for reflection? There are 29 families who will not have the perfect Xmas tomorrow. Regardless of our individual stances here, surely we can all agree that those families deserve incontrovertible justice. For as long as our arguments continue, that will never happen.

[John Purdey]

JB..... and given your background I am surprised at some of the company you keep. Meanwhile, you are talking about alleged failures in the heirachy, on which, being long gone, I cannot comment. I am talking about negligence at the sharp end, defined in my book as 'taking (or in this case) failing to take, an action which a reasonable person given the same circumstances would take (in this case turning away and up the coast, rather than flying over the Mull). We shall never see a meeting of minds here, but have a good Christmas anyway. JP.

[dervish]

JB..... and given your background I am surprised at some of the company you keep. Meanwhile, you are talking about alleged failures in the heirachy, on which, being long gone, I cannot comment.


As John Blakeley posts under his own name and his former rank is, I believe, widely known, I find it reassuring he keeps the company he does.

You, John Purdey, on the other hand, take gratification it denigrating a fellow officer and keep the company of those who regard the regulations as something senior staffs can ignore, content in the knowledge you can always blame the consequences on junior officers.

I may be of a different Service, but I can still spot the difference between a leader and someone who blindly follows the party line while not caring one iota for duty of care. I'm sure the Air Staffs, past and present, are so proud of you. I'm also sure there are those who cringe at your posts and thank God you are no longer responsible for a major component of airworthiness.

[John Purdey]

Dervish. Thankyou for your interest, but you add nothing to the discussion. Have a good Christmas. JP

[dervish]

John Purdey

I suppose you are absolutely right. I didn't add anything as we already knew, although it is never a bad thing to repeat a valid point.

[Nobodys Desk]

I didn't add anything as we already knew

dervish - you do yourself an injustice - you succinctly put into words what many onlookers here think about certain poster's attitudes to this matter. Thank you.
Merry Xmas to all.
ND

[meadowbank]

John Purdey

In his review of the BoI, AM Wratten used the following words: "without the irrefutable evidence of an Accident Data Recorder and a Cockpit Voice Recorder, there is inevitably a degree of speculation as to the precise detail of the sequence of events in the minutes and seconds immediately prior to impact".

How does this statement fit with Wratten's conclusion, "beyond any doubt whatsoever" that the pilots were negligent?

[Airborne Aircrew]

that the pilots were negligent?

Hate to be a pedant but weren't they found to be "grossly negligent"?

[John Blakeley]

JP,

The company I keep has been fighting to right a gross injustice for 15 years - it includes former Ministers (even a former PM), senior politicians of all parties and professional military and civilian aircrew and engineers - some of whom have investigated this accident and the serious flaws in its investigation to a much greater depth than I have. Thus I am quite happy to be associated with it, in my own name. Sadly, it has taken the Nimrod accident and the Haddon-Cave Inquiry for the MOD and RAF to realise where their (mis) management of airworthiness standards and procedures has taken them over the last 20 years - something the Mull Group and other pressure groups campaigning to improve airworthiness managment and standards and the "fitness for purpose" of RAF aircraft had been pointing out, with some success, eg in MOD finally fitting ESF for Hercules, long before H-C "made it official".

JB

[Thor Nogson]

I am talking about negligence at the sharp end, defined in my book as 'taking (or in this case) failing to take, an action which a reasonable person given the same circumstances would take

Since no-one knows what those circumstances were, how can anyone know what a reasonable person might or might not have done?

Am I missing something?

Happy Christmas all.

Nigel

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Since no-one knows what those circumstances were, how can anyone know what a reasonable person might or might not have done?

Am I missing something?

Happy Christmas all.

Nigel

Nigel,

You have missed absolutely nothing :ok:

[BOAC]

'taking (or in this case) failing to take, an action which a reasonable person given the same circumstances would take'- Hmm! A range of 'persons' to choose from I think.

[Bertie Thruster]

JP's comment above seems to indicate that in his estimation that terrible event on Mull happened as the 2 pilots were not 'reasonable persons' but were 'unreasonable persons'.

I can only deduce from that comment that JP must think that the RAF pilot selection, training and monitoring systems were so poor that they would allow 'unreasonable persons' to attain the positions of highly specialised SH and SF RAF pilots .

[cazatou]

What many contributors to this thread ignore is that when the BOI arrived at HQ1Gp for "Staffing" it already contained a finding of negligence from the Stn Cdr at RAF Odiham who stated in his remarks that Flt Lt Tapper, as the Aircraft Captain, had a Duty of Care in the conduct of the flight and that he had failed in that Duty.

My Dictionary defines negligence as " Omission of duty, especially such care for the interests of others as the law may require".

AOC 1Gp extended that verdict to include Flt Lt Cook who was the Handling Pilot.

[BOAC]

already contained a finding of negligence- what 'sort' of negligence, Caz, in BoI terms? Gross? Culpable? Excusable? How does your 'dictionary' define 'Gross Negligence'? That is the topic of this thread, not some JP 'book' or Caz 'dictionary' waffle.

[John Blakeley]

Caz,

I see that like JP you have reverted to going over old ground - is this the new policy for "defending the indefensible"? As you well know the published remarks of the Stn Cdr Odiham in the BoI do not contain the word negligence at any point, and even his final "reluctant" conclusion on the "failure" of the pilots to ensure the safety of their passengers leaves open the question of why that failure might have occurred (and of course we now know more than he would have done then as to the real airworthiness and fitness for purpose issues of the time, and that they were not just "mitigating circumstances"). What the comments do show is a massive "disconnect" between the first 4 paragraphs, which basically "throw out" many of the BoI's conclusions, and the last two paragraphs, and you would need to be a member of the RAF's equivalent of the "Flat Earth Society" not to notice both this and the Stn Cdr's very carefully chosen words to conform to what in my opinion had by then clearly become a policy decision to find the pilots "guilty". Do you remember the AOCinC's memo of 15 Feb 1995 requiring the allocation of blame? The Stn Cdr's comments are dated 3 March 1995, which seems a bit late for all the staffing needed for the AOCinC to be able to publish his remarks by 3 April 1995 if this was the first time round don't you think?

Indeed, I have heard it suggested that the Stn Cdr Odiham was "invited" to re-consider his original remarks - if you saw the original comments when they came to 1Gp for BoI staffing you can, no doubt, confirm whether this was the case. If it was perhaps you could also enlighten this forum as to what the first version said.

JB

[Fitter2]

kz2:

BOI arrived at HQ1Gp for "Staffing" it already contained a finding of negligence from the Stn Cdr at RAF Odiham


John Blakely (who posts under his real name):

the published remarks of the Stn Cdr Odiham in the BoI do not contain the word negligence at any point, and even his final "reluctant" conclusion on the "failure" of the pilots to ensure the safety of their passengers leaves open the question of why that failure might have occurred


Someone is telling porkies. I know who my money is on........

[cazatou]

Fitter2

May I suggest that you read Post 7415 again.

[ShyTorque]

AOC 1Gp extended that verdict to include Flt Lt Cook who was the Handling Pilot.

What evidence proved that Flt Lt Cook was handling the aircraft at the time of the accident?

[pulse1]

cazatou,

As usual, instead of answering the questions you are asked, you try to divert attention in some obscure way to someone else.

Do you remember the AOCinC's memo of 15 Feb 1995 requiring the allocation of blame? The Stn Cdr's comments are dated 3 March 1995, which seems a bit late for all the staffing needed for the AOCinC to be able to publish his remarks by 3 April 1995 if this was the first time round don't you think?

Indeed, I have heard it suggested that the Stn Cdr Odiham was "invited" to re-consider his original remarks - if you saw the original comments when they came to 1Gp for BoI staffing you can, no doubt, confirm whether this was the case. If it was perhaps you could also enlighten this forum as to what the first version said.

Why not deal with the issue as requested. If you can't, then say so.

[Chugalug2]

JB:
JP,

The company I keep....... includes former Ministers (even a former PM), senior politicians of all parties and professional military and civilian aircrew and engineers
The irony of your quote (heavily edited to make my point) is that JP and his chums could say much the same thing. When a great wrong such as this is inflicted from above it immediately effects everyone, from AC2 to ACM and above. Each and everyone is faced with a moral dilemma to obey orders or to challenge them. That decision then stays with them forever and as we have seen so often in these pages results in continual efforts to defend the indefensible, ie their own original decision. That I am afraid is their dilemma, ours is to learn from them. There has been a tendency in these pages for those like me, who call for resignation when no other honourable course seems possible, to be derided. At least such a course leaves you with a clear conscience and a fresh start, whereas toeing the unjust party line compromises you forever.
We have had the pleasure of having our three grandchildren with us again this Christmas, and as ever they made me feel both young and very old in equal measure! As to the former effect their attitude to unfairness is clear, it is simply not acceptable! If one thinks back to one's own childhood those episodes are the sharpest memories, well for me at least. Discipline and punishment when fairly administered were acceptable albeit reluctantly, injustice then though rankles to this day! No matter how high and mighty we be, we would be well advised to relearn those childhood attitudes, for out of the mouths of babes etc....
Illegal orders do not merely consist of ones concerning shooting POWs behind barns, those are the easy ones to resist. The difficult ones are those that involve "the good of the Service" etc. No doubt that was an oft repeated phrase over the many phone calls that spread this particular cancer. I do not see what good it has done to the Service or the Nation. Both are now bereft of any MAR capability and the former bears a shame to match the Dreyfuss case.
There is a lesson here for us all, particularly those still serving. You could be the recipient of such an order, such a phone call. Now is the time to consider your response, for then will be too late. To a profession that is based on the "What if...." premise that shouldn't be too difficult a task. It might just save you in years to come from defending the indefensible on forums such as this!

[John Purdey]

Chug2. Thanks for the Sermon. JP

[Chugalug2]

JP your gracious thanks, though so typical of you, are entirely unnecessary. My "sermon" (for thus it was, I must admit) was not for you but for those to whom it is relevant. You and I must simply live with our past deeds, whether good or bad.

[John Purdey]

Chug2 OK, I was a little over the top, and if that has caused offence then I apologise. Regards. JP

[John Blakeley]

Caz,

As someone in the know, and whilst you are "in the mood" to talk about how HQ 1 Gp and HQSTC "staffed" the BoI in the remarkably short time between 3 March and 3 April 1995 perhaps you could also answer the following points:

Neither the BoI nor either of the Stn Cdrs mention the word negligence, but the two senior reviewing officers do, and, clearly therefore, this "concept" must have been developed during the staffing process at 1 Gp. Since both Air Marshals have always made it clear that they saw themselves as part of BoI "process" then the rules of AP 3207 also applied to them. I do not propose to go back over the old ground of how a "degree of speculation" fits with the "no doubt whatsover" rule - that "process" anomaly in the AOCinC's comments is well known and has never been answered satisfactorily. However, the then extant AP 3207 6th Edition March 1993 at Annex G to Chapter 8 requires at paragraph 7 that:

Where a person fails, whether negligent or not, the board should consider the possible human failings of others who placed that person in the situation.

How did the staff at HQ1 Gp meet this requirement - especially given that others were clearly involved in the decision to use a Mk2 against the advice and request of the Detachment Commander, and yet others, many very senior, were involved in the decision to operate the aircraft at all against the recommendations of Boscombe Down. Who, for example, made the decision to allocate ZD 576 to Aldergrove, and what consideration did he give to the known issues with its serviceability - ZD 576, on 25 May, having suffered the last "in-service" incident that led to Boscombe Down stopping its trials. A review of "airworthiness", a word which does not figure anywhere in the BoI, should surely have been a staffing consideration given the status of CA's recommendations and the RTS, let alone all the other known problems with the aircraft?

Or are my suspicions that the policy of allocating blame, dictated from on high, meant that nobody in either 1Gp or HQSTC's engineering staffs did any sort of review at all with everyone quite "content" to continue down the road of blaming the pilots - exactly as the BoI had set out (or been directed?) to do with its confirmation that:

[The BoI made] its early decision to “eliminate as possible causes: major technical malfunction or structural failure of the aircraft prior to impact” and to focus “on the crew’s handling and operation of the aircraft” ?

However, of course, despite this decision we know that the main BoI, even with its many flaws, did not find sufficient evidence to allocate human failings let alone negligence to the pilots!

Again if I am incorrect please put me right, and tell me what staffing the engineering and airworthiness areas received in 1 Gp.

As a second question, to which I guess you must know the answer - when did HQ 1 Gp approach DLS for their confirmation that the Gross Negligence verdict was "lawful" and in accordance with the rules? Since HQ 1 Gp introduced the negligence concept one has to assume that they took this action, which was required by the AOCinC's memo of Febuary 1995 and was confirmed as having taken place to the HofL Inquiry? Between 3 March 1995 and 3 April 1995 there were only some 21 working days - a remarkably short time to get a potentially complex legal response and complete all the other staffing processes involved if this was only being done for the first time.

I look forward to your response to these simple and straight-forward questions.

JB

[John Purdey]

JB. I see that your simple questions took 565 words to express. Please spare us any difficult ones! Regartds JP

[Fitter2]

Time to count the words, but not enough to answer any one of the simple questions, I see.

[BOAC]

How sad you should feel the need to go to the trouble of a word count - we can all see two fairly 'simple and straight-forward questions'.How did the staff at HQ1 Gp meet this requirement? when did HQ 1 Gp approach DLS for their confirmation that the Gross Negligence verdict was "lawful" and in accordance with the rules? JB - I suspect there may be an internet outage in la Belle France, or unexpected guests or whatever, while others attempt, as usual, to misdirect. No breath-holding, I suggest.

[tucumseh]

As I may have mentioned before, nothing in the Haddon-Cave report came as a surprise except his willingness, presumably with MoD's agreement, to name retired 3 Stars. (The fact he demonstrably got the wrong people is another matter).

Hitherto, I have never known anyone at 2 Star and above to be so openly criticised and even in very recent cases (while Haddon-Cave was reviewing) MoD have declined to even contemplate reviewing new evidence on the grounds that the perpetrators are either retired or have moved to another post.

Now there is a precedent. Haddon-Cave was prepared to go back in time to 1998 - 8 years before the Nimrod accident. Given the irrefutable evidence now before Lord Philip, I hope he does precisely the same. (7 years, almost to the day, will do in this case). Not surprisingly, the focus would be on one of General Cowan's predecessors (he was CDL, previously AML, AMSO).

Hopefully, such a focus will serve to right that particular wrong as well, revealing just how ludicrous it was to criticise General Cowan. I have nothing but respect for the man's fortitude since it must have been patently obvious to him that he'd been set up by former "colleagues" who knew precisely when the real damage had been done and by whom. Not unlike the actions taken against the pilots of ZD576.

[John Blakeley]

JP,

Fitter 2 and BOAC have already said it all, but congratulations on finding yet another way to divert attention from the real issues. Short enough for you?

JB

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

JB,

You asked a question, do you really expect an answer :p


The above posted with tongue firmly in cheek with no actual offence intended

[John Blakeley]

SFP,

Miracles do happen, but I'm not holding my breath. I have suggested the same questions to Lord Philip's Inquiry so perhaps he will ask them if he hasn't done so already.

JB

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

JB,

With the wealth of information that this thread has bought to light I am still absolutely dumbfounded as to how some minds, on the face of it extremely intelligent minds at that, can still be so totally closed to the notion of doubt.

[Chugalug2]

JP:
....you are talking about alleged failures in the heirachy, on which, being long gone, I cannot comment.
Now that tuc has reminded us of the new base line from when the attack on UK Military Airworthiness began, ie the first half of 1987 (7 years preceding Mull), perhaps you can comment on "alleged failures in the hierarchy" JP, seeing as decisions taken in 1987 (or policy changes as the "hierarchy" are prone to call them) may thus coincide with when you were around before you became "long gone".
What are your recollections of such decisions, that were to affect the delicate self regulatory mechanisms of Military Airworthiness Provision as somewhat akin to the asylum inmates being armed with sledgehammers and picks to attack that mechanism until the inevitable happened? If the HC2 was an accident looking for a place to happen it was set on that path in that fateful year. 7 years later it found it, on a Scottish hillside, taking all 29 occupants with it.
That was the point of my "sermon", JP, ie that of the cause and effect of such decisions, which seems to have involved the issuing of illegal orders by Air Rank officers. Those decisions have now to be reviewed and dealt with. My message to those who might be so ordered in future was to learn from such decisions and their consequences, and to be ready with one's response. Others like you and I, now "long gone", can merely live with them.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Crikey :eek:

With that much at stake no wonder JP is such a staunch supporter of this unjust verdict.

[Fitter2]

Not just the issuing of illegal orders - the servile acceptance of those orders rather than (with a very few honourable, and usually career terminating, exceptions) questioning and refusing to be driven by pension considerations into carrying them out.

[tucumseh]

While I agree with Chug and Fitter, it has to be said that even today the official line in MoD is that it is not an offence to issue an order to make a false written declaration about airworthiness or financial probity. Despite Haddon-Cave, it remains an offence to refuse to obey such an order. Bizarre, but true, and supported in writing at Ministerial level.



And, as I've said before, the issue is largely academic as I have the Ministerial briefing stating I am the only person in MoD who believes the airworthiness and financial regulations should be implemented properly and such "illegal" orders should not be issued.


Of course, the people who wrote the Ministerial briefings were the very people who made the rulings in the first place. A well known principle familiar to anyone with even basic knowledge of the Mull of Kintyre case!


This rather makes one wonder what the MAA does.

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Interesting reading. Although it risks straying too far from the purpose of this thread, I wonder if the intro into service of the Lynx Mk7 would benefit from going under Tuc's MAA microscope? It fits into the timescale; I was involved at Sqn level, thought at the time it was just the AAC's way of doing things and got on with it. However, 6/6 hindsight does make me wonder if the procedure (aircraft arrived with no ODM, ACM or even FRCs, just some handling observations) was the first instance of the new regime.

[Chugalug2]

T&B, I suspect that in time just about every UK military airfleet will be seen to have "airworthiness issues" as a result of the decision at the very highest levels to suborn the UK Military Airworthiness Regulations.

It may well be the MOD position, as tuc tells us, that such a decision is legal, and thus orders to implement that policy are legal, but that tells us more about the immoral and illegal mess that is the MOD than it does about the law. Orders to suborn mandated regulations are illegal under UK Military Law, and the place to confirm that is in court, not Main Building. It is an offence under UK Military Law to obey an illegal order rather than refusing and reporting it, as Fitter rightly points out.

In the meantime tuc's point re the MAA is well made. As long as it remains a part of the MOD it cannot be relied upon to implement the Regulations, no matter the assurances to do so, no matter how industrious the sign-writers have been, no matter how far from London it be located. It has to be separate and independent of the MOD, and be seen to be so. Only then may we have confidence that the UK Military Airfleet will resume and retain, albeit slowly, full compliance with the UK Military Airworthiness Regulations.

[Old-Duffer]

I don’t recognise the comments regarding a campaign amongst the high priced help to play down airworthiness issues from about 1987 or so, as stated by tu.

In the Spring of 1990 I set up and then ran for 4 years, the Support Authority (now Integrated Project Team) for a front line jet. As I was not an aero systems (AS) engineer, there was real concern – and not a little bigotry – about why an outsider was doing this and a major issue was air worthiness authority and responsibility; not necessarily the same thing. I was fortunate to work for an engineer two star who took the trouble to discuss the issues with me and to ensure I understood the overriding importance of the subject. The outcome was that I held air worthiness responsibility for ‘my’ aircraft weapon system and my senior AS engineer, the authority.

At this time, the engineers were looking at the implications of licensing RAF engineers to ensure the highest standards of professional competence and the issue of ‘letters of delegation’ were also considered but I believe there were much wider issues and I do not believe licensing ever came about ( I stand to be corrected).

On my jet, I had a budget to run the full test specimen, contracts for advice on structural integrity, ageing aircraft surveys, consultation on a raft of other issues; such as corrosion, fatigue problems, ‘sampling’ of components and ad hoc advice on many matters. There was a team of six experts – all highly skilled and exceptionally well motivated – technicians who examined all proposals to do anything with the aircraft. There were ‘open channels’ to Boscombe Down, industry and AAIB, as well as CSDE Swanton Morley. Maintenance technologies, allowed for revisions to the maintenance cycles but at every turn, the red line was safety and integrity.

The consolidation of the Desert Storm ‘enhancements’ was also pursued in a sensible and safe way and the management of the initiation and re-approval of special trials fits (STFs) was thorough.

At no time during my tenure of office was there any pressure to short cut the system or to compromise on safety and – when I added another aircraft type to my little fiefdom – my insistence that a more elaborate set of remedial actions were implemented to solve a problem, than had at first been proposed, were accepted at 2 star level without demur.

The principal RAF engineer officers on whom air worthiness responsibilities rested would not, I believe, have countenanced any sort of slipshod approach to safety and if there is evidence to the contrary in the period in question, perhaps it should be exposed by those whose view of these matters is higher than my own.

[tucumseh]

Old Duffer

An interesting post which doesn’t actually contradict anything I’ve said.

The evidence presented to, and accepted by, Haddon-Cave demonstrated how the adverse effects of RAF policy (not MoD) to curtail spending on maintaining airworthiness was progressive. The problem I have is that he ignored the known start date and inexplicably set his own – 1998. That start date is not something I made up – it is contained in the evidence presented to an inquiry which reported direct to PUS. This evidence was first collated in 1994 and later published in 1996. The report made the point that one Fast Jet project had largely escaped the failings, emphasising what many here say – that it is people who are most important in this. There is another, more detailed reason why RW suffered more, and more quickly, than RAF FJ; but I won’t bother you with detail.

Your 2 Star sounds a sensible man. Most I know are. He cannot be the same as mine at that time – a man who told anyone who would listen that he was fed up with engineers spending money on airworthiness. You will appreciate the structure of MoD means that it only took that one man’s attitude to adversely affect his entire equipment range. Even if the aircraft that used his equipment managed airworthiness well (as you say, many did) the affects of the equipment not being maintained would, over time, creep up on them. I know from experience that aircraft offices do not necessarily get into the detail of ensuring all the equipment is up to scratch, especially when it is common to other types. Platform offices depend on equipment offices to do their job, and assume they will. Likewise, equipment offices (at the time) depended on component offices. MoD runs on such dependencies. For example, the Chinook office clearly didn’t understand the background to the multiple equipment faults and defects noted by the BoI and I would not have expected them to. They relied on my 2 Star. He let them down.

If I asked if you were content that something simple like the RIMs for your Fast Jet’s avionic equipment were valid and up to date I’m sure you wouldn’t know. Your cunning Plan of 1990 would tell you that was a dependency and you relied on (my boss) who, unknown to you, was actively chopping our funding. In 1990-94, I’d say with 100% certainty that they were gradually going out of date. That meant your Safety Case was being progressively invalidated and your RTS audit trail was evaporating. That doesn’t mean you had immediate problems, but I can assure you they crept up on your successors. This happened to some more quickly than others. That it hit Chinook in 1993 is not merely my opinion – it is clearly stated in the evidence of the BoI Report and Boscombe correspondence of the day. But they (the BoI) didn’t explore the problems; perhaps because they didn’t understand the information in front of them.

Sometimes the “hit” wasn’t serious and was taken as a gentle warning. When it hit Lynx the “only” problem was aircrew with short term breathing difficulties (something your opposite number on Lynx took very seriously, but my boss dismissed with “Let them ground the fleet if they want, I’m not paying to fix a (critical) safety problem this year”. I ignored him and made safe – the people aspect I mentioned. On other occasions, the “hit” manifested itself as a catastrophic loss, such as Hercules and Nimrod. But, sooner or later, it hit everyone; to a greater or lesser degree. That is beyond any doubt. And that is what the Haddon-Cave report is all about and why a pan-MoD Military Aviation Authority was established, not a Nimrod MAA.

[Bertie Thruster]

Hi Thud. Seasons greetings!

I was involved at Sqn level, thought at the time it was just the AAC's way of doing things and got on with it. However, 6/6 hindsight does make me wonder if the procedure (aircraft arrived with no ODM, ACM or even FRCs, just some handling observations) was the first instance of the new regime.


Sounds familiar!.....

For me (and Chinook HC2, 1994) it could read:

I was involved at Sqn level, thought at the time it was just the RAF's way of doing things and got on with it. However, 6/6 hindsight does make me wonder if the procedure (aircraft arrived with no ODM, ACM or even FRCs, just some handling observations stapled to the HC1 FRC's) was another instance of the new regime.

We both just 'got on with it'. Luckily for us we got away with it.

[John Purdey]

Old Duffer. Thanks for the breath of fresh air. I have no idea who you are, but I note your " I don’t recognise the comments regarding a campaign amongst the high priced help to play down airworthiness issues from about 1987 or so, as stated by tu." I was around just earlier than that, and I do not recognise those comments either. Regards JP

[Chugalug2]

I guess we all rather see what we want to see in these pages, JP, but I find a lot of what tuc has posted confirmed in Old Duffer's post. He admits to not being an AS Eng, and notes the "bigotry" that his appointment caused when made IPT boss but also tells us he had the good fortune to have an Eng 2* who assisted him in assuming airworthiness responsibility. His story both confirms what tuc has told us, that Engs were gradually removed from such key positions, being replaced by non airworthiness qualified officers (often suppliers), and shows how these changes varied from IPT to IPT (in this case greatly mollified by the attitude and expertise of his Eng 2*). Nonetheless I would say that his account displays the trend of what was happening, where a non-Eng boss had Responsibility for airworthiness but a subordinate Eng the Authority. I wonder what would have happened if that IPT had faced the savage cuts that other (non FJ ones?) suffered. Would responsibility have deferred to authority or pushed through the required savings at the cost of airworthiness as happened elsewhere?

[tucumseh]

JP

The facts are clear. By challenging what I am merely reiterating, you are denying parts of the ZD576 BoI report, the existence of Boscombe correspondence that has been extensively quoted by the FAI, HofC and HofL, and the content of official reports available under FoI and by download.

I am sure Lord Philip will be most interested in your submission denying these events and take a balanced view of the evidence before him. I'm equally sure he will seek clarification on what parts of the official record (above) you agree with and ask himself why you are being so selective.

But, as ever, you are entitled to your opinion, which I would never seek to deny you.

The root problems centre on AMSO / RAF Chief Engineer (two appointments which were sometimes combined). As you have stated many times you have no knowledge of or interest in airworthiness, one assumes you have no links to these posts. So, I am at a loss to understand your sudden interest, but would invite you to consider this;


Haddon-Cave claimed airworthiness was fine and dandy prior to 1998, linking its demise to the disestablishment of the RAF Chief Engineer post. (ACM Alcock, who can be named here as he has written to the press supporting the gross negligence verdict). If Haddon-Cave was correct, and the CE carried the authority to resolve airworthiness problems (and responsibility to prevent them in the first place), what precisely did he do when confronted with the long list of failures revealed in the ZD576 BoI report or the notification of severe problems in the first place (a notification he would have inherited in 1991)?



Not an awful lot, if anything. Something confirmed by Sir Robert Walmsley (CDP) when giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in 1998 (when he confirmed long standing airworthiness problems on Chinook, that were only just being addressed 2 years after Alcock left post, 4 years after the crash and 9 years after being notified to AMSO). Perhaps therein lies the reason for his belated interest. Are you saying Sir Robert is also wrong? Senior staffs routinely try to outwit and deceive these committees. Why would he readily concede such a point? (Because his briefing revealed far worse!).



Sorry, when someone has a vested interest, they're not exactly neutral.

[dalek]

John Purdey,

In my absence nothing has changed. You clutch like a drowning man at the straw offered by Old Duffer, but studiously ignore the response by Tucumseh.
Are you suggesting that the fine work done by OD and his team somehow excuses the slipshod work done on Nimrod, Hercules, Chinook etc.

Is your attitude to Flight Safety. "Well, one out of ten can't be bad?"

And Caz,

See you make yet again another inaccurate statement, and then have no answers to the simple questions of John Blakeley

Happy New Year

[John Purdey]

Tuc. You quote me as "having no knowledge of or interest in airworthiness". A very strange allegation against a GD/P with over 4000 hours! Happy New Year! JP

[tucumseh]

John

I agree. I, too, was astounded at your past disinterest and self professed ignorance of the subject.

[Ralph Kohn]

John Purdey

I must say that, to this other old duffer, "tucumseh" has a point. I distinctly recall you replying to my first post claiming Release to Service aspects are beyond your expertise. I would have thought any pilot, be he fixed or rotary, would understand the RTS failings recorded in the official papers, regardless of one's experience or type.

With best wishes for 2011 to everyone.

Ralph

[John Purdey]

Ralph.......".the RTS failings recorded in the official papers", ... but not in my time, as I have tried to point out before. Happy New Year JP

[John Purdey]

Tuc. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I had also served a stringent engineering apprenticeship. Jp

[Ralph Kohn]

John Purdey

I am afraid this old duffer is now utterly Kohn-fused.

In your reply to me, at post number 6008 you said “The Release to Service aspects of this sad business are beyond my expertise”.

The “RTS aspects” can be summarised as;
a. Boscombe Down stated safety critical software was positively dangerous and recommended to Controller Aircraft and the RAF that the aircraft should not fly in Service. Controller Aircraft did not see fit to amend this advice to ACAS.
b. ACAS declared the aircraft safe and released it for Service flying.
Not even MoD denies these facts.

What level of expertise does MoD require of its officers to identify and understand the fundamental contradiction between a. and b. and the pressing need for those responsible to resolve the conflict before ordering junior officers to fly the aircraft? My instinct, and expertise such as it is, tells me the likes of “tucumseh”, “chugalug”, “john blakeley” and other proponents of aviation safety and adherence to simple regulations have made a solid case, which I hope the Lord Philip thoroughly investigates.

My eyes have indeed been opened today on the level of thinking senior staffs applied to this very sad case.

[Chugalug2]

JP, I too am confused, like tuc and Ralph Kohn. You have consistently claimed to have no knowledge or expertise concerning airworthiness, merely airmanship, and now we discover that you are not only a very experienced GD/P but also the recipient of a stringent engineering apprenticeship, by which I take it you mean Halton. Stringent indeed! So how does that impressive professional background gel with posts (replying to my 6611) from you such as this:
Chinook
Chugalug. Your four questions; if you scroll back you will see that I have kept away from the airworthiness aspects of this sad tale on which you try to attack me, simply because I do not have the necessary expertise. I have stuck to airmanship matters, and in particular to the fact that this aircraft flew in IMC well below its safety altitude.
As my builder friend would say, "You've been 'aving a larf, aint'cher?", or was it merely being disingenuous?

[John Purdey]

R Kohn. I was not Boscombe Down, nor CA, nor ACAS, and I do not therefore understand your problem. What is more, in those somewhat far-off days, airworthiness was not the contentious issue that it apparently became in the period dealt with by Tuc. The contention seems to have started with a period of financial cuts, and that was certainly after my time. In my day the rules were quite clear, and being GD with engineering experience, folk like me followed them, and there were no disasters- why should therte be? By all means talk to the folk who were there at the time, but be good enough not to attack those who did a very good job in my day.
And, just to change the subject back to where IMHO it should be, what about an aircraft flying towards and in to IMC below its safety altitude?
With all good wishes for the New Year, and that is my last word!! JP

[Bertie Thruster]

what about an aircraft flying towards

What the witness reported from where he was sounded ok to to me.

[bast0n]

Bertie

What the witness reported from where he was sounded ok to to me.

Eh..............?

Happy New Year has clearly started already!:bored:

Anyway - Happy New Year to you all. :ok:

[dalek]

Yes JP

But what as never been established even to Balance of Probabilities, instead of No Doubt Whatsoever is:
a. Did the crew take the aircraft to the scene of the accident.
b. Did the aircraft take the crew to the scene of the accident.

Remember Burke? You never comment on his evidence, because his evidence alone blows your case clean out of the water.

[langleybaston]

"No they don't, they centre on airmanship and captaincy and why two competent pilots flew a serviceable aircraft into the ground".

I submit that nobody knows why, which is precisely why the verdict was unsound.

All the theorising, all the use of the cybernet, all the hot air, all the irascible exchanges by proponents of this and that, and it all comes down to nobody knows.

QED

[John Blakeley]

Dalek,

Absolutely right - option "a" has never been proven, and as the House of Lords Inquiry acknowledged, after a much fuller investigation than the BoI ever carried out, is anyway not provable except by speculation - not a normally accepted definition of "no doubt whatsover". I believe that the balance of probabilities arguments now point heavily to option "b" unless of course your minds are totally closed to the facts. The "biased" starting assumption that this accident was caused by the crew, a flawed investigation, and an even more flawed analysis and review, the airworthiness and fitness for purpose issues, the history of ZD 576 itself, the change of waypoint, the meticulous flight planning (to quote Stn Cdr Aldergrove's comments) and the experience of this crew and its training to cope with the weather and a low-level approach to the Mull (the first 4 paragraphs of Stn Cdr Odiham's comments), together with the evidence of Mk 2 experienced pilots such as Sqn Ldr Burke, all point the balance to option "b" in my opinion.

The irony is that none of this was meant to be seen outside the "system". When John Major made the RAF release the Inquiry, and the external investigations started, the result was that far from "protecting" the MOD and the RAF from the results of their decision to operate the aircraft, a management decision that on investigation some might feel was negligent, or even grossly negligent, this verdict has, sadly along with other avoidable airworthiness and fitness for purpose related accidents, really opened Pandora's box. Not just on the unjust verdict for the Chinook pilots but on the wider issues, including, of course, the RAF's attitude, as it then appears to have been, to their "duty of care". Add in the totally different conclusions that the same Reviewing Officers, commenting at the same time, reached on the Glen Ogle Tornado accident in September 1994, where there were no doubts as to what had happened or the serviceability of the aircraft, and, IMHO, you also have to question the (in)consistency and (un)fairness of "RAF justice" at the time.

JB

[BOAC]

and it all comes down to nobody knows. - sadly, lb, it all originates in the false assumption by Day and Wratten and some of their 'supporters' here (for whatever reasons), that they DO know. Therein lies the root problem.

Airworthiness, Captaincy, airmanship, possible dereliction of duty by Senior Officers - all have their place, but you are absolutely right in your statement.

[Cows getting bigger]

Well said JB.

Yes, Glen Ogle, a BOI outcome that should be looked at alongside ZD576.

[John Blakeley]

Olive Oil,

So you KNOW it was serviceable - please tell us how you know this.

Using your simple argument who do you see as carrying the responsibility for the failure to fit ESF to the Hercules, or the Nimrod at Kandahar - the crew or someone ouside the cockpit responsible for airworthiness - after all the Nimrod fleet had flown many 10's of 1000's of hours.

JB

[tucumseh]

Olive Oyl

Please do yourself a favour and read my posts before posting.

Can you point me to where I have said airworthiness failings caused this crash?

What I have consistently said is that the pilots may, indeed, have made an error. I do not know. But what is demonstrable fact is that there were serious failings in the application of airworthiness regulations in the 12 month period prior to the crash and, had the BoI done their job properly, they would have reported this as an Organisational Fault; as required by AP3207. If you want to know what these failings were, read the BoI report and the proceedings of the FAI, House of Commons and House of Lords. Then, if you can stand the repetition, read the Haddon-Cave report, because it is equally applicable to Chinook.

My opinion is that, had this been reported, Wratten and Day would have thought twice about blaming the pilots because the legal concept of prior negligence would have arisen and other, more senior officers (i.e. those who write to the press supporting their verdict) would have been named and shamed.

[Chugalug2]

l b:
... it all comes down to nobody knows.
I know what you mean lb, and point taken, but it rather depends on what "it" is and thus what it is that nobody knows. In the absence of a proper Air Accident Investigation, and Lord knows this accident has been shown to be woefully bereft of that, avoidable accidents happen that should have been avoided.
This accident is a classic in that regard, for whatever the reasons that it happened (and you are quite right, we don't know them and probably never will), a proper Air Accident Investigation would have exposed what we now know, the parlous state of airworthiness not only pertaining to this aircraft, not merely to the fleet to which it belonged, but throughout the entire UK Military Airfleet. Corrective action could have been taken then, some 15 years ago, which might, indeed should, have prevented subsequent UK Military Airworthiness related fatal accidents. Perhaps some 30 needless deaths could thus have been avoided. Perhaps not, again we don't know. The difference is that at least we would have tried. Those who subverted the process have that to answer for.
The shameful slur on the reputations of two deceased Junior Officers is a scandal that will cling to the Royal Air Force long after amends are made. The further needless deaths are many times more grave a matter for that is the real cost of riding roughshod over procedures and Regulations designed in the final instance to avoid such needless deaths, as is also the purpose of proper Air Accident Investigations. The Royal Air Force has shown itself not to be trusted with either, which must be removed out of its hands and that of its accomplice in this affair, the MOD. The MAA must be made independent and separate of both, as a matter of urgency.
Self Regulation never works and in Aviation it Kills!

[John Purdey]

At the risk of boring pruners to death, and as a really final contribution to this long running saga, I would like to repeat what I said eighteen months ago , ie "The follwing explanations for the disaster have so far been suggested here:

1.The crew were seduced into the hillside by a false IRA beacon.
2. Both pilots were simultaneously distracted by a fly or flies in the cockpit.
3. Both pilots were simultaneously distracted by a wasp or wasps in the cockpit
4.There was a secret piece of US equipment on board, which caused a malfunction (and which explained the alleged presence of US SEALS as the first people to reach the scene.)
5. All the aircraft controls jammed, so that the crew did not fly the aircraft into the granite, the aircraft flew the crew into it, while the crew sat helplessly and watched it happen.
6. Both pilots simultaneously suffered spatial disorientation.
7. It may (or may not ) have been a case of government sponsored murder.
To recall the others gives me a headache, but I think you get the picture.
Some folk will try anything to avoid the facts that without any doubt whatever (as we say) the crew should have turned away from that cloud-covered hill; and without any doubt whatever, they failed to do so. The most plausible explanation for their failure to turn away is that they misidentified the Fog station compound on the clifftop, thinking it was the Lighthouse compound. This put them about 500 yds to the right of their intended track, which meant (have a look at the map) that the hill in fron of them was around 300-400 ft higher than they expected, and they could not avoid it in the very limited visibility.

Such a failure to act as any reasonable person, given the same corcumstances would do, in this case turning away, is the definition of negligence.

Enough now!! JP

[Cows getting bigger]

JP, so be it. That said, if any further inquiry uncovers the facts that senior officers were negligent/reckless in carrying out their clearly defined duties, should they be held publicly accountable?

[Dick Whittingham]

John Purdey, you demean yourself with that post. This is not the place for childish debating tricks

Dick

[dervish]

Cows Getting Bigger

As you may have spotted, some people seem extremely keen to divert attention away from the actions of senior officers.


As JP so rightly points out -

Some folk will try anything to avoid the facts


It would appear from other posts that MoD has released some relevant papers that shed light on the actions of some senior officers. Have these names been submitted to Lord Philip with a view to him conducting formal interviews, as Mr Haddon-Cave did?

[Wrathmonk]

JP

It could be argued that the only fact we know for sure is that the Chinook crashed. Your opinion, which by your own admission is

The most plausible explanation

does not, would you not agree, meet the requirement of without any doubt whatsoever? This campaign is, as I understand it, firstly and foremost seeking to put right the shameful "decision" made by D & W. If, as a consequence, lessons are identified on the myriad of other issues that may also be running parallel to this case then lets hope they are made public and perhaps, as with the Nimrod, those deemed responsible are 'named and shamed'.

And around the buoy we go again!;)

Happy New Year.

[dalek]

JP

Let us cut to the chase.
Forget about wasps or visual illusion for the moment.
Do you have a shred of evidence to refute the Burke UFCM / FADEC theories.
Yes or no.

[John Purdey]

Dalek. Thus far the discussion has avoided insults, and I regret to see that you have broken the record. JP

[Cows getting bigger]

JP (or anyone else), any thoughts on my 7468?

[Tandemrotor]

JP

You have an 'opinion' based on a scarcity of reliable facts. I have no doubt that will remain your opinion.

My 'opinion', based on the same scarcity of reliable facts, is very different.

It is not possible for us both to have a 'difference of opinion' in cases in which there is 'absolutely no doubt whatsoever'.

Your opinion is not the only possible explanation. Just as my opinion that we could not recover sufficient facts to say for sure what happened, is not wrong.

We just disagree. That's all.

BTW: I recently viewed a TV program on air accident investigation, in which it was said that 'black boxes' are normally decoded by impartial third parties. In stark contrast to the navigation computer of ZD576 (never previously used to provide historical data!!!) which was of course decoded by it's manufacturer. Whose performance may of course have been implicated??? :rolleyes:

[BOAC]

As 2010 wanders slowly to a close, I wish Brian and team the very best in their pursuit of justice and Lord Philip and team a successful foray into the jungle.

I do wonder whether the probable public damage to the reputation of the senior staff involved and the slight on the fine traditions of the RAF could have been avoided had so much effort not been made to prevent the current enquiry? A damage limitation exercise?

[dalek]

JP,

Sorry for getting carried away. Please accept my apologies.
Can you please answer the question. Have you any evidence to refute the Sqn Ldr Burke UFCM / FADEC theories.

[BEagle]

From elsewhere:

Michael Armitage Says:

December 27th, 2010 at 7:26 pm

First of all, a Merry Xmas to all readers.

I thought it would be worthwhile posting an update.

The Lord Philip Review has commenced and continues apace. The Review’s terms permit it to go deeper than previous reviews (which you will recall still cleared the pilots). This is making MoD nervous because they are being asked questions which they studiously avoided during the original Board of Inquiry.

This has not prevented them continuing to deny the existence or possession of key documents but the difference this time is that the Review is actively seeking and receiving copies from other MoD sources. That is, when any request is made of MoD, it is normally dealt with by a team which is ordered to toe the party line. In the past, this team’s replies have been accepted at face value, but following the experiences of the Nimrod and Hercules Coroners’ Inquests (when MoD lies were exposed in Court) it seems the Review is pursuing unofficial channels and having some success acquiring these non-existent documents.

One example of the issues being raised is here:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/39182-chinook-still-hitting-back-3-merged-743.html (at post #7426)

To summarise this single post, the Board of Inquiry were duty bound to consider the possibility of an underlying “Organisational Fault”. They did not. The poster postulates this was under direction from senior officers. Right or wrong, his point about the Board’s report not once mentioning “negligence” or “airworthiness” is perfectly valid and constitutes an extraordinary omission and failure of duty. This is important, because the existence of such an “Organisational Fault” is exactly what the Haddon-Cave report is all about; in that case, a systemic failure to implement airworthiness regulations. Who benefits from such an omission?

This in turn raises a question which Lord Philip has been asked to consider. If senior officers were deemed to have contributed to an Organisational Fault, could a verdict of gross negligence be sustained? (In my opinion) of course not, because such a verdict required proof beyond any doubt whatsoever; and such a high level failure would introduce doubt. Also, please consider this. The officers who handed down the gross negligence verdict and their supporters (primarily retired senior officers of the day) were part of the cadre responsible for Organisation Fault. Not only on Chinook. At their level, their actions affect all aircraft, so they can be seen to be major contributors to the problems exposed by Haddon-Cave.

This plethora of “new” evidence (it is not new as such, but it was not made available before now) is believed to be one reason why Lord Philip has sought a 6 month extension, with mid-2011 now his target. This would suggest that not only has Lord Philip been informed of such failings, but this time hard factual evidence has been produced which MoD can no longer simply dismiss as hearsay.

[John Purdey]

Dalek. Your apology accepted; thankyou.
BEAgle ??? source???? JP

[BEagle]

BEagle ??? source???? JP
Argyll News: Independent Review of evidence in 1995 Kintyre Chinook crash to be held in private? :Argyll,Kintyre,Chinook crash,independent review, | For Argyll (http://forargyll.com/2010/07/independent-review-of-evidence-in-1995-kintyre-chinook-crash-to-be-held-i-private/)

Possibly a coincidence? Or is someone on that site trying to be devious?

[dalek]

JP,
Thank you.
With or without being rude, how can you justify the Gross Negligence verdict without demolishing Sqn Ldr Burke's evidence?
If UFCM / FADEC problems still cannot be ruled out, how can the verdict be justified?

A Happy New Year to you and all the other participants.

[John Blakeley]

JP,

You missed reason number 8 off the list - not good as it is the one that you need to use to find aircrew negligence. It reads:

Having meticulously planned a low-level VFR transit (not least to avoid the icing limitations on the airframe) which took full account of the expected weather conditions, and having changed waypoints whilst over the sea (when MOD has confirmed this would normally pressage an immediate course change) an experienced SF crew ignored all their flight planning and training and selected "an inappropriate rate of climb to overfly the Mull" leading to the accident.

As greater legal brains than you and I have pointed out this reason is not based on facts - it is as full of speculation leading to hypotheses as some of reasons 1-7, but you are, clearly, entitled to have this opinion. What the "system" is not entitled to do under RAF rules of the time, or indeed civil law, let alone the ethical standard of justice one might expect to apply to the RAF, is to find Gross Negligence based on this speculation!

A Happy New Year to all.

JB

[1.3VStall]

JP,

"and as a really final contribution to this long running saga".... (your post 7467)

How many of us wish.......!

[dalek]

Cazatou,

Can you please tell us why AOC 1Gp decided that Flt Lt Cook was the Handling Pilot?

Olive Oil,

I don't know your background, but any competent aircrew will tell you that serviceable on aircraft acceptance does not necessarily mean serviceable some forty minutes later. From Waypoint change to Impact we have no information whatsoever on the serviceability of the aircraft.

[cazatou]

Dalek

It was the investigating BOI that came to that conclusion based IIRC on the authorisation as well as the AAIB report and the autopsy evidence.

PS

If they had any doubts as to the servicability of the aircraft - what were they doing at high speed and low level flying an aircraft full of passengers directly towards fog enshrouded high ground?

[dalek]

Caz,
Have you ever even considered that the high speed may have resulted from unserviceability (FADEC / Burke), instead of any deliberate action on the part of the crew.

What the Auth sheets say and who flies at any particular point in a leg is certainly no conclusive evidence that RC was the operating pilot.
I can't remember what the BOI / AAIB said about who was flying.

[BOAC]

Cazatou - welcome back! Post #7426 now?

[John Blakeley]

Dalek,

This is what the BoI said:

The Board was unable to positively confirm who was the handling pilot (HP) at the time of the accident, however, it would be conventional in Chinook operations for the HP to occupy the RHS. Furthermore, the technical report indicates that Flt Lt COOK's feet were probably on the pedals at the time of impact. It is also conventional for the non-handling pilot (NHP) to make the radio calls on the VHF and UHF radios, and it was the opinion of the Board that the calls on these radios were made by Flt Lt TAPPER. The Board concluded that it was most likely that Flt Lt TAPPER was operating as NHP and Flt Lt COOK was operating as HP during the flight.

Cazatou,

I see you are trotting out the HMV record again - how about answering the questions?

JB

[langleybaston]

In an effort to simplify things in this non-flying mind, I re-read #7426, had no trouble understanding it, and came up with these quotes:

Q1. Where a person fails, whether negligent or not, the board should consider the possible human failings of others who placed that person in the situation. So how did the staff at HQ1 Gp meet this requirement?
Q2. Who, for example, made the decision to allocate ZD 576 to Aldergrove, and what consideration did he give to the known issues with its serviceability?
Q3. Again if I am incorrect please put me right, and tell me what staffing the engineering and airworthiness areas received in 1 Gp?
Q4. When did HQ 1 Gp approach DLS for their confirmation that the Gross Negligence verdict was "lawful" and in accordance with the rules?
Hope that makes things easier. Qs 2 and 4 need only very short factual answers.

[bast0n]

If they had any doubts as to the servicability of the aircraft - what were they doing at high speed and low level flying an aircraft full of passengers directly towards fog enshrouded high ground?

Good question..............

Actualy I believe from all the evidence, that they were chuntering along at a speed quite normal for a Chinook and still hit the putty. Please put me right all those in full knowledge of FADEC - did it take full control of the aircraft or just the engines? Did it link to the autopilot and have the capability to throw you into the ground at a most inconvenient moment without the HP having any input whatsoever?If it did, why on earth did sensible pilots fly this uncontrollable beast........?

Happy New Year.

[Chugalug2]

bast0n:
why on earth did sensible pilots fly this uncontrollable beast........?
A very good question old chap. The ones at Boscombe Down refused to, unfortunately other Chinook Mk2 pilots were not made aware of that. These pilots didn't want to, requesting a MK1 for the task, they were turned down and told to fly this one.
As to your technical queries I can only say that the man to have asked then was Sqn Ldr Burke, RAF Odiham Test Pilot, who had more experience than he would have wished of FADEC malfunctions and the jamming of flying controls (in various combinations of axis), but the BoI declined to call him. Perhaps others better qualified than I might address them for you now.

[bast0n]

Chugaz

These pilots didn't want to, requesting a MK1 for the task, they were turned down and told to fly this one.

Are you really telling me that pilots can be ordered to fly an aircraft they know is unsafe - in peace time?

I think that would be an unwise obedience of orders.

[Chugalug2]

No, bast0n, I'm not telling you that. You know I'm not telling you that. Those pilots did not know what we know now. They did not know that their aircraft had been illegally granted a Release to Service into the RAF. They did not know the catalogue of technical malfunctions that had been exhibited before, during and after entry into service. In short they knew very little, but enough to know that they did not know enough. There is evidence of their concern in that, and of attempts to deal with the paucity of information that came with this new type.
I find it interesting that you concentrate on their alleged negligence, oh sorry you call it pilot error don't you, though seemingly accepting the RAF's version nonetheless, while ignoring the alleged Gross Negligence of Very Senior Officers. Default selection cutting in again is it?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

JP,
Thank you.
With or without being rude, how can you justify the Gross Negligence verdict without demolishing Sqn Ldr Burke's evidence?
If UFCM / FADEC problems still cannot be ruled out, how can the verdict be justified?

A Happy New Year to you and all the other participants.

dalek,

Due it's toxicity JP simply cannot answer your question as to do so blows his theory clean out of the water.

If he acknowledges Bob Burke's evidence, which is absolutely 100% credible it introduces the very doubt that he assures us does not exist, so you will be ignored.

One or two on here are very very clever at avoiding the subject matter they know they cannot discredit.

[bast0n]

Chugaz

I find it interesting that you concentrate on their alleged negligence, oh sorry you call it pilot error don't you, though seemingly accepting the RAF's version nonetheless, while ignoring the alleged Gross Negligence of Very Senior Officers. Default selection cutting in again is it?

That is not fair, and you know it. I have always been against the "Gross" negligence verdict - but I do find it amazing that they apparently accepted, and flew, in an aircraft that they were unhappy with - for whatever reason. Pressure from above? Lack of gumption to say "no way"? Who knows.

Never in my time did I ever accept an aircraft that I was worried about. Why did they? They patently were worried about it, for why did they ask for a Mk 1?

I ask again - did this Mark 2 have the ability to fly itself into a nearby lump of rock without the pilots having any input whatsoever?

It is not the only aircraft in the world with FADEC or equivalent systems in place.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

I ask again - did this Mark 2 have the ability to fly itself into a nearby lump of rock without the pilots having any input whatsoever?



Can you say hand on heart, without any any doubt what so ever that it couldn't?

[dalek]

Thank you JB.

Cazatou, Yet again you misinform. How can you equate "feet probably on the pedals", to absolute certainty RC was the operating pilot.

[Chugalug2]

bast0n:
Never in my time did I ever accept an aircraft that I was worried about.
That is utter drivel, bast0n, and you know it. How on earth did you make it through to retirement without ever being worried? Old pilots and bold pilots eh? I guess you're the exception that proves the rule, or simply lacking in all imagination? I find your posts to be some of the most annoying of all, bast0n. At least the apologists just keep pumping out the same old hackneyed script and not answering questions, either from a sense of duty or self preservation. What motivates you I know not, nor really care, but I find your middle of the road position, of accepting the scenario pushed out by Messrs W&D yet not able to bring yourself to accept their finding as untenable.
For myself, if I truly believed that these two pilots maintained heading and speed on track for sharply rising ground after going IMC, with 25 pax on-board, I wouldn't come to any other conclusion than that they were negligent. I might demure at gross negligence simply because of the lack of certainty, but as I understand it your position is that the MOD scenario is correct, but that the pilots were merely in error, is that right? You may have gone through life unworried, but I wonder if your crew and pax felt the same?
Oh, and as for:
It is not the only aircraft in the world with FADEC or equivalent systems in place
You really must be joking. It isn't that FADEC's were fitted, but that they were controlled by totally corrupt code resulting in arbitrary run-ups, run-downs, and shut-downs with no manual reversion. How well briefed these pilots were about that I know not, but given that Very Senior Officers were so briefed and still saw fit to release the aircraft into RAF service, I suspect that they knew little other than rumours. Stops them worrying too much, don't you know?

[ShyTorque]

Seems blatantly obvious that someone in high office became exasperated and decided it was time the Chinook HC2 went into squadron service, despite all common sense saying it wasn't ready.

There was no aircrew manual, and no flight reference cards for the type. The Mk2 was, in aircrew terms, in many respects very much a new type (although it looked externally much like the previous version).

The MOD airworthiness procedure was simply short circuited, ignored, forgotten, bulldozed or over-ruled, simply because helicopter availability in NI (an operational theatre and a political "hot potato") was at a very low point.

Crews were given a conversion to type and told to "get on with it" despite the shortcomings and lack of normal essential documentation for emergency procedures.

Why did they "just get on with it"? Because being told to "get on with it" is what military personnel are disciplined to do, from day one. They make the best of a bad job. In an operational theatre they must do so, the system demands it implicitly. Crews who object sufficiently strongly to an order are likely to be given formal disciplinary action. I know of one case where this occurred, during the Falklands war, again on a Chinook Squadron. A pilot stood up for what he believed to be correct, out of operational concern for the safety of the aircraft and lives of their aircrew. His concern was ignored. Not only that, he also received formal disciplinary action and was removed from his post. It effectively ended his RAF career. However, he was proved to be correct in his concern. If his concern had been addressed in a more positive way, we would probably have had more than one Chinook for the Falkands campaign. The rest went down with the Atlantic Conveyor. Those saying that this crew should simply have refused to fly should bear this sort of thing in mind. Jon Tapper probably did..

Why was the normal airworthiness procedure allowed to "no longer apply" to the Chinook Mk2?

The "new" Mk2 aircraft were in fact rebuilt Mk1s. To obtain a Mk2 they had to remove an RAF Mk1 from squadron service.

Someone, probably to save face for the RAF, stuck his neck out and took a huge gamble. We know the result.

[Airborne Aircrew]

Baston:

That is not fair, and you know it. I have always been against the "Gross" negligence verdict - but I do find it amazing that they apparently accepted, and flew, in an aircraft that they were unhappy with - for whatever reason. Pressure from above? Lack of gumption to say "no way"? Who knows.

Never in my time did I ever accept an aircraft that I was worried about. Why did they? They patently were worried about it, for why did they ask for a Mk 1?

I ask again - did this Mark 2 have the ability to fly itself into a nearby lump of rock without the pilots having any input whatsoever?

It is not the only aircraft in the world with FADEC or equivalent systems in place.I'll start by saying two things. Firstly, you have been consistent in your determination that this affair was not the result of "gross negligence" on the part of the crew and secondly, that you do keep "going on about" the circumstances and talking as if the crew simply flew the airframe, willy nilly, into a hillside. I believe you'll find that's what niggles people about your continuous posting here - I've said it before and I'm quite happy to say it again - you come across as a troll.

That aside, there is clear evidence that these two pilots were unhappy with the aircraft they were tasked to fly and asked for another. It's quite obvious that, for whatever reason, their misgivings were over-ridden or assuaged. I accept that you never accepted an airframe you were not happy with flying but I'll ask you to answer honestly - how many airframes of a new mark number that were of questionable reliability were you asked to fly when there were serviceable airframes of the lesser mark number available that were pretty much proven to be safe? There is a huge difference and I don't know why or whether these two, clearly very professional pilots, chose to take the Mk 2 or were pressured into taking it did so - we'll never know.

It is, I believe, more unfair of you to not understand or accept that, for whatever reason, these pilots chose to fly an airframe they were clearly unhappy with than it is for you to cry "foul" on Chugs for questioning your debating technique...

I think there were many aircrew that flew the Mk 1 that were not entirely happy with some of it's "idiosyncrasies" let alone crews that were unhappy with the Mk 2. I think I can say that with some authority, (I might be incorrect regarding others - though I lived and worked closely with many of them), since I was almost certainly the first to simply refuse to fly a Mk 1.

Yes, you're correct. The RAF and I parted ways - but not until their psychiatrist had given me and F-Med 7, (I think that's what it was), which is a certificate of sanity.... The Chinook, in my opinion, has always been a bloody dangerous airframe. The Mk 2 sounds like an accident designed to happen... I lost several friends on the Mk 1 because it failed to do what it was supposed to do. I see no reason why the Mk 2, with all its documented problems should have got RTS in the first place - especially knowing the failings of the Mk 1.

The argument seems to be that the crew were "grossly negligent" in that they flew an airframe into a hillside. Surely, since they asked for a Mk 1 and were clearly not accommodated does not the negligence, (were there any to be found), get moved up a layer of command to the person who refused to provide the Mk 1 airframe?

[walter kennedy]

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did – magic!


Chinook240
I understood from references to the "steer meter" output that the ADI in the HC2 was fully an Attitude Director Indicator but I did not know that there was not a way of driving the HSI from the Flight Management System (FMS, Racal 252 in this case). At first sight it seems strange that the RAF would choose not to have this option as the components were there in similar architecture to the 47D which could display GPS data on the HSI as could, for example, the commercial version of Racal's RNAV-2. Perhaps someone on this forum could explain why?


I also understood Chugalug's point about the necessity of navigating visually at low level, relying upon eyeball and maps – correct me if I'm wrong, but GPS was not to be used as the primary navigation even in civil aviation for some time after this event – but there was no restriction to its use to save pilot workload for keeping to track on a long route (fuel economy and time) provided that VFR were complied with (ie that you could see the ground below and around for a minimum distance).


They had very much done a bee line from Aldergrove to waypoint change, the last 20 miles over the sea without a distinctive feature on the Mull to aim for, and so I say that they would surely have had to have had some practical course deviation indication for the HP – it seems that this would have been on the AI (in the form of steer indicators) rather than the HSI – I do not believe it would have been practical or necessary to have had the NHP looking at the CDU and saying "Left a bit, right a bit" for 20 miles nor would it have been practical to have had the HP trying to read the CDU for himself. Recalling what Group Captain A D Pulford said to the committee (27 Sept 2001) on spatial disorientation:
<< … What we are looking at here when considering the possibilities of spatial disorientation, when flying over the sea in what I would term a "goldfish bowl" (this is when the poor visibility and mist and weather conditions you are flying in tend to merge with the grey sea underneath) the body is deprived of visual cues and you are then very dependent upon the instruments that you have in front of you to inform the brain that actually up is up and down is down. … I think here we were looking at the possibility, as a contributing factor, where certainly the flying pilot—the handling pilot—would have had his spare capacity diminished by the fact that he was having to concentrate on the instruments to ensure that he kept the wings level and the aircraft flying. ...>>
To which I add, “and keep on track” - which they had done over 20 miles of sea with the cloud and mist obscured Mull ahead.


The steer directions on the AI would definitely have been processed data as opposed to raw therefore the potential for error would have been compounded as I have been trying to explain in previous posts. Anyway, I have made the point for a long time that it would have been wrong to rely upon the GPS as close in as waypoint change – they would only have been using it for the route flying and, the crux of my arguments, had to have had a local reference of some kind to have approached so closely in the prevailing conditions, nevermind turn in and reduce power.


Do you agree that the pilots would nevertheless have set their HSI course selectors on the course that they were interested in? That the course deviation (from the GPS computed track) was displayed to the pilots on the AI rather than the HSI does not detract from the significance that I have put on the HSI course selector settings in my analysis with respect to the planned and actual tracks.

[Admin_Guru]

I find it bewildering that the blame culture continues to limit itself to whoever had his hands on the sticks. There were four crew members on this aircraft and one of the crewmen came from the Mull and therefore had local knowledge of the area. The GPS was not reliable and suffered from sh*t in equals sh*t out; and notwithstanding that, I had encountered errors of up to 5 miles on albeit rare occasion using the same kit without 'finger trouble' being a factor. If the pilot operating the nav kit was heads in, then reliance for safety would have been down to operating pilot and crewman. (The local knowledge crewman was also the one at the front).
When faced with similar circumstances regarding weather delivering SF to an exercise target in Germany, my crew stopped, literally, turned around (spot turn) and landed safely in the nearest available field. This aircraft also should have been able to slow down-go down-turn around which was and remains SOP for bad weather.
The bottom line is that we will never advance beyond speculation regarding those last minutes of flight, and because nobody ever will know for sure what really happened to burden the crew with total responsibility is and will remain so: Unfair.
Instead of us concentrating on reasons why the crew cannot be blamed, the MoD should be presenting evidence 'beyond all doubt' as to why the crew can be blamed. .....or change the verdict.

[bast0n]

Airborne

you come across as a troll
So be it!

Chugaz

I find your posts to be some of the most annoying of all, bast0n

Yes - I am deliberately putting across a middle view. The vast majority of pilots that I have discussed this with agree with this argument - and it is only that.

The middle view again, and I am sorry if it annoys you, is - Pilot error largely to blame but not "Gross" negligence.

[BOAC]

May I make a suggestion here - a sort of New Year's Resolution if you like, to reduce the noise to signal ratio?

How about all those posters here, who when asked a direct question, IGNORE it or reply with a different question WITHOUT answering the original at the next opportunity (ie post on thread), be ignored?

I propose that "I do not know" be accepted as a satisfactory reply, even if a somewhat awkward and potentially embarrassing answer.

[Chugalug2]

bast0n:

Yes - I am deliberately putting across a middle view. The vast majority of pilots that I have discussed this with agree with this argument - and it is only that.

So please spell out your "middle view" bast0n, because I just don't get it. The vast majority of pilots, I suspect, are prepared to agree that the pilots may have been in error, even perhaps that they may have been negligent, but they don't know that and merely accept the possibility. You on the other hand do appear to know and to accept the scenario that their airships paint, baulking only at finding the pilots negligent, let alone grossly so. The words cake and eating come to mind. Most pilots I submit would readily opt for negligent if their airships version was known to be what happened. Point is we don't know, but we do know a lot about their airships now and it doesn't make pleasant reading. Nonetheless we have to read it and determine our view.
My view is that the MOD and the Services should no longer be the Airworthiness Regulator and Air Accident Investigators respectively. They have shown themselves not to be trusted in those roles. The MAA should therefore be made separate from and independent of the MOD, and the MAAIB in turn of the MAA. That is my view bast0n. What is your view? Could you please spell it out for me, because at the moment I just don't get it.

[BOAC]

Well, there's one on the board for #7504 already.:D

[Tandemrotor]

bastOn

A couple of points if I may:
I ask again - did this Mark 2 have the ability to fly itself into a nearby lump of rock without the pilots having any input whatsoever?

I cannot speak for the Mk2, however I know the Mk1 most certainly had that ability. That is why it's release to service said the a/c was unsuitable for extended low level operations! This in a tactical SH helicopter!!!

But we got on and flew it anyway. Because everyone else did.

Even after a very largely unexplained, fatal accident in the Falklands, when a Chinook gently departed from level flight from 500', impacting the ground in a HIGH SPEED vertical dive.

The only transmission was the centre portion of the words **cking He**. Of course the recommendation to retrofit CVR after this accident, was ignored. Seven years later Flt Lts Tapper and Cook were required to pay the price for that decision too!

The vast majority of pilots that I have discussed this with agree with this argument

Are you, or any of your 'vast majority of pilots', familiar with the term 'double DASH runaway'? Or it's powerful effect?

I absolutely accept that pilots unfamiliar with this a/c type, or this case, are perfectly happy to play fast and loose with the facts. I'm not concerned by their views one little bit!

[BOAC]

Make that 2?

[walter kennedy]

BOAC
Good call! - I have been busy over Xmas and am only now realising just how much carp has gone around in the last few weeks.

[Bertie Thruster]

The Chinook, in my opinion, has always been a bloody dangerous airframe

At one moment during a Chinook HC2 differences course at Odiham in Feb 1994, I felt, for the only time in my life, my hair stand on end.

Luckily that 1994 posting involved only one 'new' HC2 airframe and it was easily possible to keep it firmly on the ground, due various 'airframe rigging' problems, for several months of a very long 6 month tour.

[dalek]

Happy New Year Seldom.

I do not believe for one moment that Gp Capt Pulford chose to exclude Sqn Ldr Burke's evidence from the BOI. I think he was leant on from a great height.
Before you complain again JP, do read what the HOL said about the exclusion of Burke. They think the same as me, so I have considerable top cover.

The inclusion of the Burke evidence would not have made a great deal of difference to the findings of the original BOI. They did not not after all produce the findings of Gross Negligence.
They could easily have supported their case with something like.

" At around one minute before the crash Mr Holrook witnessed the aircraft apparently serviceable and under control. The Board find it (Highly?) unlikely that a catastrophic failure of the types envisaged by Sqn Ldr Burke could have happened in the short timescale available........"

The findings of the Board would still make sense.

It would still make it impossible for the Reviewing Officers to reconcile (Highly) unlikely with the concept of Absolutely No Doubt Whatsoever.
Even politicians would see through that one.

Hence the need for Wratten, Day and fellow travellers such as JP, to try and suppress the evidence.
If you ignore it, it does not exist.
Is that your attitude JP? An ostrich does that, and it eventually gets eaten by lions.
Grrrrr!

[meadowbank]

John Purdey

On 24th December (Post #7408) I asked the question reproduced below. Accepting that you may have been preparing for Midnight Mass or enjoying one or two mince pies too many, thereby not noticing my post, perhaps you would be kind enough to answer my question now.

In his review of the BoI, AM Wratten used the following words:

"without the irrefutable evidence of an Accident Data Recorder and a Cockpit Voice Recorder, there is inevitably a degree of speculation as to the precise detail of the sequence of events in the minutes and seconds immediately prior to impact".

How does this statement fit with Wratten's conclusion, "beyond any doubt whatsoever" that the pilots were negligent?

With best New Year wishes,

Meadowbank

[BOAC]

Quite amazing - since I suggested the 'put up or shut up' idea, the background noise has died significantly. Messrs Purdey and Cazatou have been spotted grazing these pastures, but obviously are unable to answer the questions. There you go. Simples, as they say..

No doubt they will be back, but with other deflecting 'questions' and no 'answers', and we all know what to do then, I trust?

[John Blakeley]

JP,

Congratulations on yet another disingenuous response which seems to have "vanished" since I read it at 11:11 - and you accuse others of going round the bouy again! The question was not about when negligence occurred (on the basis that your opinion is that it did) but how you can meet the requirements of no doubt whatsoever when even the senior RO admits to a degree of speculation. This question never gets answered except by the independent Inquiries who consistently, and at the highest of legal levels, say that the RAF's finding was wrong. Just to remind you, and any others who could be "taken in" by your response, this is what the Lords Inquiry said about the Reviewing Officers' Hypothses:

No direct reference to the standard of proof

Neither Reviewing Officer referred to directly to the standard of proof (absolutely no doubt whatsoever) at paragraph 9 of Annex G to AP3207. The AOC stated he was:

“…aware of the difficulty of attributing negligence to deceased aircrew,”

However, nothing in his remarks indicated that the difficulty he was alluding to was the satisfaction of a extremely high standard of proof. He could equally well have been referring to sensitivity or embarrassment in making such a finding. If “difficulty” in this was intended to refer to the standard of proof, it was an astonishingly understated way of dealing with such a crucial test. Perhaps this cursory treatment indicates that the AOC had not been properly advised as to the significance of the test.

The AOC-in-C, in his subsequent remarks, made no mention at all of any “difficulty” or of the standard of proof.

Neither Reviewing Officer appeared to justify his opinion that the deceased pilots were grossly negligent by reference to any statutory standard of proof.

and later:

Conclusion

The hypothesis recorded by the Reviewing Officers and repeated by the Chiefs of Staff was not well founded in fact and did not therefore meet the statutory criterion for a finding of negligence. Sufficient doubt existed for the initial Board to quite properly decline to make a finding of negligence. Neither Reviewing Officer nor any higher authority justified the substitution of their opinion that a finding of negligence was appropriate on the basis of assumptions derived from the same, very limited evidence available to the Board. Additional doubt was later cast on some of the assumptions by evidence not before the Board but available by September 2001.

The essential objectivity of accident investigation was incorrectly overridden, and subjective opinion was misguidedly allowed to replace the painstaking analysis of the initial Board.(my bolds)


And it is still this injustice that this thread is all about!

JB

[John Purdey]

BOAC. Pls see yr PM. I deleted my open response in the hope of avoiding repetition (again) Regards JP

[dalek]

John Purdey,

I believe, (in my opinion), that your biggest problem is you mistake Rank for Experience.
In military aircrew at Officer Level, the vast pool of knowledge is located at the Flight Lieutenant / Squadron Leader level. Even most Squadron Commanders accept that technical flying issues are best referred to the specialists such as QFI or Nav Ldr .

By the time you reach Air Rank you never see raw data.
As an Air Officer the expert information of the QFI and Nav Ldrs are filtered through Flt Cdrs, Sqn Cdrs, Stn Cdrs, and at least one pyramid of HQ Staffs.
You rarely see the initial report.

This thread is filled with countless Junior, (plus a few Senior) officers who tell you, you are probably wrong. They include Test Pilots, QFI's, Nav Ldrs, JEngO's etc, many with SH and Chinook experience. I doubt you can find a single experienced Chinook aircrew that supports your conclusions.
Yet you continue to claim that the case is proved to ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER.

In the past you were very offended when I called you arrogant. Please look up the Oxford dictionary and tell me why the definition does not apply to you?

[John Purdey]

John B. Sarcasm? I had expected better of you.
Dalek. Please yourself.
JP

[Dick Whittingham]

Olive Oil

The question is not about Wratten's thought processes. It asks whether the two statements he made are contradictory. You have to face up to the fact that they are, and I don't see how in logic anyone could argue otherwise

Dick

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Sorry but you wrong Olive, however if you had written the following.......


What is suspected, because there is no actual eyewitness evidence to prove the fact is that the aircraft flew into deteriorating weather and the crew did not avoid it or return to base. With that lack of definative information, the ROs had The Rules of The Air and JSP318 and ASOs and a stack of regulations to guide them to their findings and conclusions without the need to consider the precise order in which the crew's airmanship/captaincy may or may not havefailed. That was their opinion then and I suspect that nothing here now is likely to alter their views.

OO

Opinion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion)

Even JP has admitted he has no idea as to the weather that was observed from the flight deck windows in the minutes prior to the crash. The fact is no one alive knows what could be seen from the flight deck windows so what ever opinion anyone has it's nowt but supposition.

And in this case that simply will not do or am I missing something here :confused:

[dalek]

Olive Oil,

1. Do you have any flying experience?
2. How current were you when you first dealt with this report?
3. Do you have any Chinook time?
4. Do you have engineering qualifications?
5. How long have you served working for an organisation like IFS or AAIB?

Do you have any relevant Flight Safety qualifications at all?

[Chugalug2]

Excellent 5 questions dalek, now we await the excellent 5 answers, and wait, and wait, and....
That John Purdey, Olive Oil, et al see no conflict between the concept of no doubt whatsoever and the mere opinions (your word Olive) of two men (not backed up by any Rules or Regulations for the simple reason that they could not prove that any such Rules or Regulations had been broken) would not matter one jot except for the fact that they thus seek to justify the improper processes of the Military Air Accident Investigation and the Military Airworthiness Authorities, aka the Services (the RAF in this case) and the MOD respectively. That they wish to nail their case to that mast is their affair. I would only say that if ever the CAA and the AAIB were implicated in the improper granting to an unairworthy aircraft type of a CofA and the subsequent finding of manslaughter against the deceased pilots of a crash involving that type with no proof (ie proof!), there would be a national scandal. The fact that some 17 years after the event these particular Airworthiness and Accident Investigation authorities have yet to be the subjects of such a national scandal is a scandal in itself. 17 years is more than enough. Enough now! Let Right Be Done!

[walter kennedy]

Some who read this thread would relate to the situation of approaching an aerodrome near an urban sprawl at night - you initially may look for the darkest area! - the "regulars" on this thread have unwittingly drawn more attention to the area of nav kit because they have kept it so much in the dark.
Face up to it, by the time they had changed the waypoint they were already too close in (a little over 600 metres to the nearest shore, was it?) to the indistinct hill – although they were in daylight, fuzzed up with mist as it was, it was just as dangerous to approach at speed as at night – and this very experienced crew would have known this - if they had no reason to approach it that closely then they were indeed negligent to some extent.
I believe that the most harsh verdict was politically motivated so as to infer to the public that it was just a case of pilot error "beyond any doubt whatsoever", to allay concerns over, say, sabotage that could have led to unrest or mistrust of the peace process – so the government is not going to give up this view lightly.
So perhaps you all could expend just a fraction of your energy that you have fruitlessly expended on "airworthiness" (etc) on what they could have been intending to do there.

[pulse1]

so the government is not going to give up this view lightly.

Walter,

The PM and Defence Secretary at the time have both actively supported the campaign to clear the pilots. I'm probably very naive when it comes to politics but, for me, that doesn't fit in with your theory.

[dalek]

Hardly an expert witness with the calibre of Sqn Ldr Burke then?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Hardly an expert witness with the calibre of Sqn Ldr Burke then?

Sadly an understanding of, and preferably some direct experience of SH is not a pre requisite for posting in here, if it was then I suspect one or two would see the folly of their stance.

[Airborne Aircrew]

With due respect, you do not need to know the answers to your other questions.

The very purpose of "pleading the fifth" is to avoid self incrimination. Oddly enough, the very act is, as often as not, equally damning...

[walter kennedy]

Pulse1
<<The PM and Defence Secretary at the time have both actively supported the campaign >>
What value are their crocodile tears today? - makes you feel like there's some real support? - leave it to the big boys? - seems like it's ok for you hands-on aircrew to do nothing?
Have you not noticed that the high profile politicians manage the public as opposed to enacting their will?

[langleybaston]

My stance is that justice under the rules, and indeed natural justice, does not seem to have been done.

I submit that the qualifications to taking and publicising a legitimate stance are simple:

1. the ability to write and read and understand English. (got the relevant O levels, language and lit. t-shirts)

2. an open mind.

I came to this thread knowing no more than a member of the general public other than being Duty Churchwarden at St Boniface, JHQ, when the appalling news of the disaster broke.

Given that "nobody really knows what happened" (my shorthand of the previos 'n' pages) the extant verdict is insupportable, in my view. Those better qualified than I can argue over technicalities, but such argument, at best, avoids my central issue. Perhaps it is meant to.

[walter kennedy]

Dalek
As you would be aware, I find Sqn Leader Burke's opinions re the HC2 rather misleading:- he did not point out the wings-level slew significance for slowing real quick (indeed his opinion was to completely discount the slew demand as anything normal for a Chinook); when describing the fully pulled up thrust/collective he did not identify the correlation with the rotor rpm that pointed to a last second pull up on that lever immediately before impact (rotor pitch had responded but there had not been time for them to slow leaving power still at intermediate) - both critical in understanding this crash.

[dalek]

Langleybaston

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on this thread.

I base mine on many thousands of flying hours and the fact that I not only used but taught one of the critical components (TANS navigation computer) in this case. This piece of equipment is a Prime Suspect and has been misused by the MOD to support its case.

I am, however, a Navigator, not a pilot, and have never been on a Chinook Squadron. So there are far more qualified people on this thread to comment on some of the flying aspects of this accident.

The Sqn Ldr Burke we refer to, was at the time the Unit Test Pilot and the person best qualified to give evidence at the Board of Enquiry. The MOD (person or persons unknown), not only prevented this, but ordered him not to cooperate with the Air Accident Investigation.

Hope this clears things up.

[cazatou]

dalek

Re your 7521

I do not recall you demanding answers to such questions from Brian Dixon. Equally, I was not aware that you had the Authority to demand such answers from contributors.

Please enlighten us as to your place in the PPrune Hierachy which enables you to make such demands.

[Cows getting bigger]

Gentlemen, may I suggest we tread carefully in undermining individual posters? There are people here who have a far greater personal interest than those of us who postulate about injustice.

Maybe it is best to stick to fact and reasonable supposition.

[dalek]

Cazatou,

The word "demand" does not feature anywhere.
What OO decides to tell us is down to him.
The fact he decides not to tell means (to me).
a. He was not a current at the time of his involvment with this case.
b. He has little or no Chinook experience.
c. He is not a qualified engineer.
d. He has no significant experience in a Flight Safety organisation such as IFS or AAIB.

I accept that I could be wrong on one or all of the above.

Please stop inserting inflamatory words which I certainly never intended.

Instead of protecting someone who is perfectly capable of looking after himself why not try answering questions.

Olive Oil,

No offence intended.

[BOAC]

I can see from other posts that Cazatou and probably JP have returned to post here. Could anyone tell me if they HAVE answered any of the questions and whether it is worth my while 'un-ignoring' them? (I am guessing probably not:))

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

You're right BOAC-probably not.

[bast0n]

OOOOOOOOOOOH

Lots of Hissy going on.

Lets cool it chaps and see what the good Lord delivers. Bad manners and bad mouthing gets no one anywhere.


Well done so far.................Gentlemen.

[John Purdey]

BOAC. I did answer, but by PM (in the somewhat vain hope of reducing the volume of noise here). I can only think that you did not read it. JP

[John Purdey]

Dalek. At 5303 you accepted the allegation that the whole thing was a conspiracy between the air, FS, tech and legal authorities at Group, Command and MOD levels. Or had you forgotten? Regards JP

[bast0n]

See 7538 and ponder......................and ponder.................Gentlemen?

[Chugalug2]

JP, on page 266, your 5301 read:
Chinook
Dalek & Chgalug.

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.

Will you be good enough to confirm that this is your opinion?

A simple question, not 'on the one hand and on the other' but a simple YES OR NO

Regards. JP
To which both myself and Dalek answered in posts 5302 and 5303 respectively, "Yes" to your question 1, rather than the misquote you now ascribe to Dalek. Being liberal with the evidence would appear to be a well honed tactic, not least in the scandal that is revealed in these very pages . As to the extent of that scandal, no doubt that will become clear all in good time as it is right now under review. I guess we'll all have to be patient in the meantime but, for what it's worth, my suspicions would be aimed up rather than down the CoC.

[dalek]

JP,

A gross oversimplification of facts again.
But basically the answer is yes.
A group of Senior Officers and Civil Servants colluded to gain and maintain the Gross Negligence verdict. That is blindingly obvious. Otherwise why would Sqn Ldr Burke be prevented from giving evidence and why have Brian and the Mull Group been obstructed at every twist and turn from obtaining documents they deem relevant?
Were all Senior Officers and Civil Servants implicated? I doubt it. But you tell me, I bet you know everyone involved.
This is only an educated guess, but I a pretty sure that it is accurate because of the very first question you asked me three years ago.
I stated I knew three Officers of Air Rank who disagreed with the verdict.
You instantly PM'd me asking for names. Why did you consider that important?
I now know of five BTW.

All Flight Safety Staff were in agreement. As John Wayne would say, " the hell they were."
I had a Sqn Ldr friend on Wrattens staff. He was brave enough to tell Wratten that the Gross Negligence verdict was unjustified. Eight years later when I left the service, he was still a Sqn Ldr. Not a very forgiving man was Bill.

I have now answered your conspiracy question twice. Do me courtesy of answering mine once.
"Were the Royal Air Force justified in preventing Sqn Ldr Burke from giving evidence to the BOI."

[John Purdey]

Dalek. I have never seen the relevant documents, and I therefore do not know. Regards JP

[dalek]

JP,

You have a very firm opinion on this case.
Are you really trying to tell us you have never seen, or at least read, the evidence given by Burke to the HOL enquiry?
If you havn't, then your opinion is about as valid as the Honourable Members of the HOL who rolled in from the bar to vote on the issue.
If you have, your flying experience gained a few years before, must tell you it was vital evidence to be considered by the BOI.

[Chugalug2]

I have never seen the relevant documents, and I therefore do not know. Regards JP
What relevant documents, JP? On this thread alone there has been an abundance of links published, including ones to the HoL hearing to which dalek refers. Just as with your "unfamiliarity" with airworthiness the abiding impression is one of a disingenuous attitude in your posts.
Never mind documents JP, seen or unseen. What possible justification was there in the BoI failing to call the one man, both experienced and qualified with the flight and engine control shortcomings of the Chinook HC2, to give evidence to them? Why was Sqn Ldr Burke forbidden to contact them if it wasn't to hide such shortcomings?

[John Blakeley]

JP,

Sarcasm - mocking, contemptuous, or ironic language intended to convey scorn or insult.

Obfuscate - To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand. To render indistinct or dim; darken. "A great effort was made . . . to obscure or obfuscate the truth" (Robert Conquest).

Disingenuous - Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating, pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated.


I am sorry that at post 7517 you thought I was being sarcastic – I thought that I was merely pointing out facts that you and other supporters of the guilt based on speculation verdict like Caz continue to ignore since they are not saying what you want them to say. The problem is, as I see it, now in three parts which are highly inter-related, but which it is possible to consider separately.

Firstly what caused the accident - the answer to which is "we will never know", but people like you are convinced that you do know and are prepared to pronounce guilt based purely on speculation - I cannot see any way to persuade you otherwise and, as you say, you are entitled to your opinion.

Secondly there is the legal issue on which neither the Reviewing Officers nor people like you and me are qualified to comment. Here the HofL, which included a Law Lord, has said that at the time they reached this verdict the ROs did not reach a legally sustainable decision based on the facts of the case. This was the summary in my last post that neither you nor others like Caz have ever offered any answer to – so it is, I suggest, reasonable to assume that you do not have one. I am now speculating, but it is difficult to see how Lord Philip will find any difference of opinion on the legal aspects from the HofL unless someone comes forward with factual evidence that backs the "Gross Negligence" verdict - I think this is unlikely, but it would be wrong of me to pre-judge this. (I am, incidentally, personally convinced that those who sought the DLS advice could not have give them the full facts, since DLS are usually spot on with these issues, and I would not have expected them to offer different advice to the conclusions of the HofL Inquiry - MOD did not give them the full facts before the FAI either, and we have written proof of this. I suppose in mitigation one might argue that DLS would never have had the full facts because the Board hadn’t investigated them)

Thirdly, and ironically, of course there is the can of worms on the airworthiness and CAR/RTS issues that the Board's flawed investigation, and even more flawed analysis, together with this unjust verdict by the ROs have caused to be exposed. A just verdict would probably have left these issues buried. Whether these flaws were an indirect or even direct cause of the accident I do not know – unlike others I am not making any claims to know the cause or pronounce on guilt. I also do not know whether Lord Philip will look at this area, but the scandal here is at least as big as Haddon-Cave exposed on the Nimrod accident, and in some ways it is worse since, in my view, the failure to expose these issues at that time meant that the RAF was allowed to continue with its inadequate airworthiness and "fitness for purpose" policies and compromise its duty of care whilst yet more lives were lost to “airworthiness” related accidents over another 14 years.

I know that for the families clearing their sons’ names is the number one priority. I understand this, and I would not wish to see or do anything that prejudiced such an outcome – for that, and not speculation on the cause of the accident, is the prime reason for this thread, and, I assume, Lord Philip’s Review. However, I would also like to see Lord Philip pronounce on point 3 since I believe there are indeed some negligent and guilty parties in this area.

JB

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

JP,

You have a very firm opinion on this case.
Are you really trying to tell us you have never seen, or at least read, the evidence given by Burke to the HOL enquiry?
If you havn't, then your opinion is about as valid as the Honourable Members of the HOL who rolled in from the bar to vote on the issue.
If you have, your flying experience gained a few years before, must tell you it was vital evidence to be considered by the BOI.

I would wager a hefty bag of money that JP has not only seen but is fully conversant with the documentation you mention but to allow it into "his" debate means it would have to be argued against, which only a fool would try.

You may get an opinion from Caz on this but JP will never be drawn on it.

[John Purdey]

John Blakeley. Thanks for your three points above. I daresay you have already made them to Lord Philips, and we can expect him to give them the consideration they deserve. Regards JP

[Airborne Aircrew]

JP:

It would be nice if you could get the man's name right... It shows a certain lack of respect for both the man and the process... :ugh:

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

And, my I add, a lack of attention to detail.
Maybe, JP, that is why you are able to reach the decisions you do.

[John Purdey]

At 7549, for Philips please read Philip. All happy now? JP

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

No John. Attention to detail is not waiting for others to see the mistake(or inconsistancy) and then correcting it with bad grace. Had you admitted to a keyboard cock-up we would have understood, but not necessarily believed.

[walter kennedy]

Is there no one else on this forum who is willing to agree or disagree with Chinook240's statement that the STANS was not "connected" to the horizontal situation indicators?
Is it to much to ask that we clearly determine just what the navigation system and the flight instruments could do?
It could hardly be "OPSEC" (or whatever you want to call sensitive) as other a/c of the time (mil & civil) had the facility.
There may have been a reason why Doppler/GPS track data was not used to drive the CDIs of the HSIs at the time in HC2s - if so, surely this anomaly is of interest to this case.

[cazatou]

ROG

Re your post 7549 in respect of a lack of attention to detail - where you wrote "my I add" did you mean "may I add"?

[BOAC]

I believe I saw Cazatou 'grazing' here this morning? Since I cannot see his posts at the moment, can anyone tell me if he has managed to answer JB's questions?

[pulse1]

BOAC,

Not yet, I'm afraid. He is just spending his time looking for typos in other posts.

[BOAC]

Thank you, p1 - I expect JB is impressed:mad:

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Thank you, p1 - I expect JB is impressed:mad:

I suspect you will find he has grown used to it :ok:

[John Blakeley]

P1, SFP and BOAC,

You are all correct - I have long ago given up expecting answers to factual questions, and I guess we are all used to getting oft repeated speculative opinions in lieu. I wonder if Caz and JP have put anything forward to Lord Philip's Review?

JB

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

P1, SFP and BOAC,

You are all correct - I wonder if Caz and JP have put anything forward to Lord Philip's Review?

JB

Intuition tells me that at least one of them will be praying hard to a much higher judge than Lord Philip that the verdict stands and the matter simply goes away.

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

Caz, you're correct, and I admit to a keyboard cock-up. However it gave you and your twin something to grab at. :O More's the pity you cannot or will not answer the questions which have been put to you. That would be a worthwhile exercise.

[langleybaston]

When I want a good laugh, I enter this thread. For sheer puerile playground bickering, without descending into gutter language, this has to be the best forum around.

I have to suggest that nothing is going to be resolved by this correspondence, and that people could do well to get out more. Including me.

But then, I was not aircrew so am not privy to the workings of the collective mind.

I'll pop back from time to time to check up.

[now this gives BOTH sides a chance to find a common foe, and kiss and make up ....... blame the MetMan, he's used to it]

"When I'm right, no-one remembers, when I'm wrong no-one forgets"

[Boslandew]

LB

Its about time someone said it. Well done, LB

[chinook240]

WK

Is there no one else on this forum who is willing to agree or disagree with Chinook240's statement that the STANS was not "connected" to the horizontal situation indicators?


Why do you need someone else to agree or disagree - are you suggesting I have lied about the instrumentation layout of the Chinook HC Mk 2? I have stated facts and they don't need corroboration, so accept them and don't piss people off, especially someone trying to help you understand the system!

[langleybaston]

Now we have the gutter language.

[dervish]

Why do you need someone else to agree or disagree - are you suggesting I have lied about the instrumentation layout of the Chinook HC Mk 2? I have stated facts and they don't need corroboration, so accept them and don't piss people off, especially someone trying to help you understand the system!


Well said C240. It is about time someone did.

[bast0n]

Children,children...........................!

Well done LB - keep it up.

[Dick Whittingham]

Just by chance I picked up this on the net. It is from a book called "How to win arguments when you have no case" by someone apparently called Tony Bliar. The book had been roughly handled, only scraps remain legible, e.g.

"Stop answering questions. Better still, invent questions you would like to be asked and answer those

If pressed, try and change the thread to something else

If criticised take the moral high ground. Adopt an air of injured probity

Categorise you opponents as childish and unreasonable and all criticism as unwarrented abuse.."

Dick

[Chugalug2]

bast0n:
Well done LB - keep it up.
A chip off the old bast0n block, eh?
LB, instead of admonishing the style and language of others' posts, since we have a hierarchy of well respected moderators for that role (OK, I need the points!), your expertise and experience as a Meteorologist might be put to better use in addressing the met aspects of this accident. The MOD's case (and also that of their apologists who post here) is that because observers on the Mull were shrouded in mist and fog to varying degrees (caused by the orographic cloud covering the hill side), ipso facto the aircraft was in cloud at its turning point off shore. Thus the pilots failed to maintain VMC at that point and thus instantly became Grossly Negligent. All this despite another witness out to sea seeing them go past and who could make out the Mull shoreline as well.
I summarise of course, but does the MOD case make sense to you, given that it is crucial to the Reviewing Officers' Finding? Your input in this would be of great interest and much appreciated.
Regards, Chug

[bast0n]

Dick

Categorise you opponents as childish and unreasonable and all criticism as unwarrented abuse..

Was Bliars spilling reely that bed?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Just by chance I picked up this on the net. It is from a book called "How to win arguments when you have no case" by someone apparently called Tony Bliar. The book had been roughly handled, only scraps remain legible, e.g.

"Stop answering questions. Better still, invent questions you would like to be asked and answer those

If pressed, try and change the thread to something else

If criticised take the moral high ground. Adopt an air of injured probity

Categorise you opponents as childish and unreasonable and all criticism as unwarrented abuse.."

Dick

Dick,

This is why I should have studied harder at school as it would have given me the smarts to come up with this sort of crackingly smart put down in stead of pondering an analogy with regards to the TV off button.

Trouble is anything this cutting usually has some disgruntled and thoroughly belittled chap chipping away at your grammar or spelling............................ooops too late :p:p:p:p:p:p

[jindabyne]

It's a shame; this thread used to have a strong purpose, whichever view one took, but it now seems to have lost its way.

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

Agreed Jindy.
Perhaps it's time to revisit Brian Dixon's second post on this thread,and I hope he does not mind me repeating it.
The following is a letter published in the Sunday Herald on 10 Feb 02.

Why the MoD must pardon the Chinook pilots. .By Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary Of State For Defence 1992-1995

. .The defence secretary and the Prime Minister are in danger of making themselves look very foolish. . .Last week a high-powered House of Lords select committee published its report into the 1994 Chinook air disaster that caused the deaths of the cream of British military intelligence. . .The select committee was chaired by the formidable Lord Jauncey, a former Lord of Appeal and a judge whom I know from my own experience to be a person of the highest ability and integrity. He was assisted by four colleagues, two of whom are distinguished QCs. They had no axe to grind and they approached their task with great professionalism.

They concluded, unanim-ously, that it would be wrong for the Ministry of Defence to maintain the finding of gross negligence against the deceased pilots of the Chinook made eight years ago by two senior RAF air-marshals. . .The immediate reaction of the government was made by armed forces minister Adam Ingram within hours of the publication of the report. He could hardly have had time to read it, but he appeared to dismiss it as containing nothing new. The implication was that the government would not budge.

That in itself would not run counter to any of the previous behaviour of the Ministry of Defence. There has already been a fatal accident inquiry, under a Scottish sheriff, which concluded that the finding of gross negligence was unsafe and should not be maintained. The government ignored that.

The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons, its most important select committee, has accused the Ministry of Defence of arrogance and called for the verdict to be put aside. They have been ignored for their pains. There have been various studies of the accident by aeronautics and com puter experts, all of whom have concluded that technical problems may have caused the accident. Their views have been dismissed.

To make matters worse, the RAF has changed its procedures so that never again will air-marshals be asked to allocate blame for air accidents. They will try to identify the technical causes of air accidents but leave questions of blame to the civilian courts. The Chinook case, therefore, re mains a hangover from a discredited procedure, but the Ministry of Defence clings to the air-marshals' decision with all the tenacity of a rottweiler.

I confess I have a personal interest in this case. I was the secretary of state for defence at the time the air- marshals reached their decision. I endorsed it and reported its conclusion to parliament. . .I recall being sad that the pilots were being blamed, but at that time I had no reason to question the conclusion of the RAF that gross negligence was the cause of the accident. These are highly complex and technical matters. A defence secretary has no more specialist knowledge of why an aircraft might have crashed than a health secretary would have on why a heart transplant had gone wrong. One must, to a considerable extent, trust the judgement of one's senior advisers.

Why, then, have I changed my mind and called for the verdict to be set aside? . .The main reason is the substantial volume of evidence that has since emerged concerning the technical faults that the Chinook was experiencing at the time -- the problems with the computer software and other difficulties that had, on occasion, led to the Chinook helicopters being grounded.

The Ministry of Defence has admitted these defects, but has always argued that as these technical problems could not -- in their view -- have contributed to the Mull of Kintyre accident, they did not invalidate the verdict. For the same reason, it had not been felt necessary to draw them to the attention of the relevant ministers. That view has been consistently challenged by aeronautics experts over the past eight years.

The RAF's own rules made it clear that a verdict of gross negligence could be reached only if there were absolutely no doubt. Much doubt has emerged, as Lord Jauncey and his eminent colleagues have concluded. . .The current position of the Ministry of Defence is untenable on two counts. First, they rest on the air-marshals' conclusion that, as no other cause of the accident has been identified, it can only be explained by the gross negligence of the pilots. Such reverse reasoning would be dismissed in any civilian court, where one would be required to provide hard evidence that points to negligence. You cannot merely assume negligence in the absence of any other explanation.

The second failure of ministers is more fundamental. Again and again they say they will reconsider the verdict only if new evidence appears which was not considered by the air- marshals. They know perfectly well that after eight years it is highly unlikely that any new evidence will ever appear. We will probably never have any hard evidence as to what caused the accident on that fateful day. . .But that is irrelevant. The point at issue is not whether there is new evidence, but whether the known facts justified the air-marshals in finding that the pilots had been grossly negligent.

When a Scottish sheriff, the Public Accounts Committee, numerous aeronautics experts and now a House of Lords select committee chaired by a senior judge all advise that a verdict of gross negligence is unsustainable on the known facts, it is the height of stubbornness and obduracy for ministers to refuse to consider using their discretion. . .In one sense the families of the pilots have already won their campaign. The reputation of the two pilots has already been restored, given the huge weight of professional expertise that has rejected the verdict. If the two air-marshals and the government refuse to retract that rejected verdict, that reflects on them and on their judgement.

I have the greatest respect for the RAF and for the Ministry of Defence. Those who work there, including the two air-marshals (who are now retired), are people of great integrity and professionalism. I do not believe there is any cover-up, or any sinister explanation for their refusal to set aside the negligence verdict. . .But there is a culture of resentment at others seeking to second-guess RAF expertise. To acknowledge a mistake would hurt, and might reopen many policy questions. I am sure there are many who wish this whole issue would just go away.

Yet it will not. There are basic issues of natural justice at stake. It is, in any event, no longer for the RAF or for the officials in the Ministry of Defence to decide. This sort of issue is exactly why we have ministers; why ministers are accountable to parliament and to the public for the actions of those under them.

Mr Hoon and the Prime Minister cannot hide any longer behind the air-marshals and the Ministry of Defence. When issues of natural justice are at stake ministers must exercise their own judgment. If Mr Hoon is too blinkered or too overwhelmed by his officials to act, the Prime Minister must do so for him.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

[ 11 February 2002)
http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/buttons/report.gif (http://www.pprune.org/report.php?p=369890)

[walter kennedy]

Chinook240
I thought I had initially posted appreciation of your kicking off discussion on this topic – I had hoped others would join in to establish the nav/avionics setup that is really a basis for understanding how they got their way around.
Why I pushed for other opinions was to try and get other inputs (developing the picture, as it were) and also a second opinion on what was a surprising difference from other similar systems. As I believe I have said in previous posts, that this option was not available in HC2 Chinooks was an interesting issue in its own right – the 47D had it.
While the Americans publicise procedures rather well (obviously not OPSEC ones) for their own airmen to brush up on, there is very little in the public domain for equivalent UK procedures and systems – hence the need for anyone researching incidents such as this one to ask basic questions on forums such as this.
The hostility towards nav questions on this forum contrasts with the endless banter on airworthiness, weather, and legal points that has so smothered debate – I believe there is enough evidence for a planned, controlled approach to a specific point on the Mull that would clear the pilots’ names (because it has not been acknowledged in prior inquiries that they had had an additional task) and that it would be a shame if the analysis/arguments supporting this were to be derailed because of some minor difference in understanding/use of instruments – let’s clear all this up?
And so I press on:
While I appreciate that such crews on operational flights would have been doing it by the eyeball and map, they had been essentially doing route flying over sea with practically featureless land ahead – the “steer meter” on the Attitude Director Indicator (or whatever you call yours) was driven by compound data that the HP blindly followed while the NHP would have been checking the CDU which had been in GPS mode – one would have thought that simply using the HSI would have been an option requiring less workload on the simple route flying part if this had been an option. (Comment/correction gladly received!)

[chinook240]

WK,

Thank you. I have happily answered numerous PMs from you and others on the operation of the RAF Chinook. Your request for 'second opinions' did not appear to reflect appreciation of that. I have not detected any hostility to nav questions, perhaps as many of the contributors have a low-level VFR navigational background and understand the nature of those operations.

The bespoke nature of the avionics in UK aircraft will not be a surprise to many, the Chinook Mk 3 being a case in point!

[Chugalug2]

Sir MR:
The second failure of ministers is more fundamental. Again and again they say they will reconsider the verdict only if new evidence appears which was not considered by the air- marshals. They know perfectly well that after eight years it is highly unlikely that any new evidence will ever appear. We will probably never have any hard evidence as to what caused the accident on that fateful day. . .But that is irrelevant.
With great respect Sir Malcolm there is evidence, and before a judge at this very moment. Whether it be "new" and what the MOD means by "new" is irrelevant. It is evidence and seems indeed to indicate Gross Negligence, but that of course is for his Lordship to decide upon. A very serious and sombre situation but one which I feel should at least result in the infamous and unjust finding, albeit by
people of great integrity and professionalism
to be cast aside, given that what evidence there is may indeed point to Gross Negligence, just not by those so nominated by the two Air Marshals.
Let Right Be Done!

[bast0n]

At last

Apart from Seldom, five posts without rancour.

Keep it up - it is far too important to let it wander off track.

[Chugalug2]

As with LB, bast0n, let us leave approval or castigation to the mods and stick to the job in hand. For instance I have already asked you once to explain your stance on this accident. It appears to me that you accept the MOD version, as briefly described by me to LB, but demure at the official finding of Gross Negligence, preferring instead a more conciliatory one of Pilot error.
Is that correct, if so how do you arrive at that? For myself, if what happened was indeed as per W & D's version, I would have little difficulty with a finding of Negligence, though "Gross" would be laying it on a bit. As I do not accept their version of events at all it follows that I do not agree in any way with their finding but you do it seems, though not with its severity. Care to explain?

[Airborne Aircrew]

Chugs et al:

How many times does it need to be said?

Baston is a troll.

He just floats by throwing out his "arguments" but, when challenged, admits that "Gross Negligence" is unwarranted. The whole point of the thread is that "Gross Negligence" is unwarranted. Why on earth would you respond?

[Chugalug2]

AA,
With respect labelling a fellow aviator as a troll, and one who flew helicopters operationally before many on here were even ideas, good or bad, doesn't seem to be any more helpful than LB's amusement or indeed bast0n's valedictory comments re others' posts. Hopefully he will allow me that liberty as he and I are of much the same vintage I think. We are all, well nearly all, professionals, be it past or present. That is why I invite bast0n to explain why he accepts W&D's version but not their finding. If he cannot do so in a professional manner then he will be found unconvincing by his fellow professionals, and I am sure he knows that. This isn't some pubescent chat site about music or motors but a forum for professional aviators posting on a thread aimed at reversing an injustice that cries out for a proper resolution. Far from dissolving into a pointless morass, it is my belief that this thread will soon witness that resolution. If that is indeed the case it will be thanks in no small measure to the perseverance of the professionals who know that these pilots were scapegoats to a dishonourable and disreputable scandal.

[langleybaston]

bast0n:
Quote:
Well done LB - keep it up.
A chip off the old bast0n block, eh?
LB, instead of admonishing the style and language of others' posts, since we have a hierarchy of well respected moderators for that role (OK, I need the points!), your expertise and experience as a Meteorologist might be put to better use in addressing the met aspects of this accident. The MOD's case (and also that of their apologists who post here) is that because observers on the Mull were shrouded in mist and fog to varying degrees (caused by the orographic cloud covering the hill side), ipso facto the aircraft was in cloud at its turning point off shore. Thus the pilots failed to maintain VMC at that point and thus instantly became Grossly Negligent. All this despite another witness out to sea seeing them go past and who could make out the Mull shoreline as well.
I summarise of course, but does the MOD case make sense to you, given that it is crucial to the Reviewing Officers' Finding? Your input in this would be of great interest and much appreciated.
Regards, Chug

Regarding the Met. there seems to be little to add, in fact nothing, even allowing for the fact that I used to lecture RAF pupils on The Hazards of Weather as part of ab initio, refresher and Nav. courses.

May I point out that BastOn and langleybaston have no connection, living or dead, fictional or otherwise.

[Chugalug2]

Little to add to what LB? If you have previously posted your professional thoughts on the matter then I must have missed them. If so I apologise and wonder if you would be so good as to repeat them. If not then all I am asking for is your reaction to the RO's case that because the Mull was shrouded in what is evidently very typical cloud hugging the hillside when there is a stiff onshore breeze, that said cloud would have definitely extended offshore and thus engulf the turning point with no doubt whatsoever. For that is the MOD case and seems totally unsubstantiated to me.
You tell us that you are amused at the level of discourse on this thread, so I invite you to raise the tone and give us your professional opinion, if you would please be so kind. Thank you.

[langleybaston]

I do not know if the BoI called an expert witness regarding weather. I would, of course be interested in what he/she said, if anything, but can hardly be expected to agree/ disagree with said witness without access to all the facts.

My stance is founded on a more basic premise, which is that gross negligence needed to have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt, and clearly was not.