Vulcan tried to escape from Wellesbourne, 16th Sept 2022

[DucatiST4]

Originally Posted by Thoughtful_Flyer

"Work" includes activities involving groups of volunteers. As does employer's liability insurance. It doesn't matter whether the workers are being paid or not.

Only if the organisation involved has at least one employee. 655MaPS who look after the aircraft and were involved in the incident is entirely voluntary. Granted its not totally clear how the aircraft being owned by the airfield might affect this position but there would seem to be no employer - volunteer relationship which means that Health And Safety laws do not apply.
.

"When health and safety law does not apply

In most cases, health and safety law does not apply where volunteering does not involve an employer."

[Krystal n chips]

Originally Posted by DucatiST4

Only if the organisation involved has at least one employee. 655MaPS who look after the aircraft and were involved in the incident is entirely voluntary. Granted its not totally clear how the aircraft being owned by the airfield might affect this position but there would seem to be no employer - volunteer relationship which means that Health And Safety laws do not apply.
.

"When health and safety law does not apply

In most cases, health and safety law does not apply where volunteering does not involve an employer."

I hate to shatter your delusion here...H n S legislation most certainly does apply to volunteers ...the railway I was on had it in their various regulatory notices ..not that they actually bothered with such until the ORR arrived and forced them to start complying...but H n S is applicable across just about every organisation...."duty of care " mean anything to you at all ?

In case you were wondering, for me the purpose of an investigation is to establish what went wrong....and why. Not a "blame game " exercise...that's counter productive in flight safety, albeit for some organisations it's sadly still in place. The only time I'm in favour of finding fault and attributing blame is when it's warranted by virtue of those involved being cavalier and indifferent to the rules they feel don't apply to them.

Remember also, this aircraft, whilst it's not flying, is still a working and functioning aircraft and the public can get very close to it. Once you allow the public to be in close, or even relatively close, proximity to a complex and potentially very dangerous piece of machinery, then you need to ensure all measures that can be taken for their protection can and will be, in place.

Think about it, all of us who have been involved with live aircraft had the dangers and safety aspects drummed into us from day 1 and continuously after that. Most of the general public don't and are therefore dependent on organisations and trained personnel who do.

[common toad]

Then there was the Lightning doing a high power run with an engineer on board.
It overode the chocks and the engineer (who was not a fullly qualified pilot) took off did a crcuit and landed safely.

Wing Commander Taff Holden trained on the Tiger Moth, Chipmunk and Harvard. He held RAF wings.

[Yellow Sun]

Originally Posted by DucatiST4

Only if the organisation involved has at least one employee. 655MaPS who look after the aircraft and were involved in the incident is entirely voluntary. Granted its not totally clear how the aircraft being owned by the airfield might affect this position but there would seem to be no employer - volunteer relationship which means that Health And Safety laws do not apply.
.

"When health and safety law does not apply

In most cases, health and safety law does not apply where volunteering does not involve an employer."

Not a FMOTL are you? Just asking.

The airframe is owned by a “shell” company which has some form of contract with 655MaPS to maintain and preserve the airframe and presumably to organise events to fund its activities. 655MaPS would appear to be a voluntary unincorporated body and does not seem to be registered as a charity. Whether it conducts its business through elected officers or has appointed trustees is unclear. The significance of unincorporated status is that although you may effect insurance to mitigate personal loss, all members of the society have unlimited liability should anything go wrong. The trouble with insurance is that you never know if it will work until you need it. A sobering thought!

Now, the “shell” or holding company also owns Wellsbourne Mountford Airfield but plainly neither manages or operates it. The management is contracted out to another company which, according to their last published accounts, employs an average of 9 people. 655MaPS will have to have some form of contract with the management company who will have a duty of care to ensure that activities conducted on the site are done so in a safe manner. This will include ensuring that proper risk assessments are carried out.

It seems pretty clear that although the company owning the site has no employees and 655MaPS is voluntary the incident occurred on a site for which the management company, which has employees, has overall control. Were I a director of the management company I would have had an urgent meeting with responsible officers of 655MaPS and advised them to make a short factual report of the incident to their insurers, the HSE and the local authority. I would also advise them that my own reports would be filed in 2 hours time.

YS

[jumpseater]

Originally Posted by DucatiST4

The HSE's remit is Health and Safety at work. This wasn't a workplace incident.

Seeing it happened at a licensed aerodrome, where employees and the general public have access, the location is certainly under legal definition a ‘work place’. Also CAP168 certain safety criteria need to be met for a license to be issued.

I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t a subsequent official overview, HSE and/or CAA aerodrome licensing, of their procedures to ensure that their procedures are robust in the event of an over run. Hopefully that’s already included in their airfield risk assessments anyway. If it is, and they worked, then there’s nothing to see, if not we can assume changes in the future.

[Richard Dangle]

Having looked at the images, and the location on Google Maps, I am a little surprised that this sort of activity by this sort of aircraft is permitted at this site, when no traffic lights appear to be im place controlling the traffic..or have I missed them????? I operated for many years on an aircraft of similar vintage, on a runaway with a public road crossing at one end, and there were traffic lights controlling traffic for all arrivals and departures. This beast came within a gnat's c**k of creating some much larger headlines. I would suggest that someone, somewhere has dropped the ball a little from a risk assessment perspective. No doubt that will now be rectified - both here and elsewhere - albeit I suggest the cost and inconvenience of implementing traffic control measures might be undersireable given a simpler, more obvious and cost-free solution.

[Thoughtful_Flyer]

Originally Posted by Richard Dangle

Having looked at the images, and the location on Google Maps, I am a little surprised that this sort of activity by this sort of aircraft is permitted at this site, when no traffic lights appear to be im place controlling the traffic..or have I missed them????? I operated for many years on an aircraft of similar vintage, on a runaway with a public road crossing at one end, and there were traffic lights controlling traffic for all arrivals and departures. This beast came within a gnat's c**k of creating some much larger headlines. I would suggest that someone, somewhere has dropped the ball a little from a risk assessment perspective. No doubt that will now be rectified - both here and elsewhere - albeit I suggest the cost and inconvenience of implementing traffic control measures might be undersireable given a simpler, more obvious and cost-free solution.

Whilst it is usual to have traffic control if a road passes very close to the end of a runway, normally it is only used for an unusually large aircraft taking off or landing. I live in a city that has a airport with just such a setup.

I don't think I have ever known it to be used for something that has no intention of leaving the ground but might smash through the perimeter fence! To be honest, if that is necessary then it is difficult to see that the operation was ever a good idea.

Does the ploughed field normally have crops? If so, would they have operated had there been standing corn? If so and the same had happened it would presumably have caught fire!

[rickyricks]

Originally Posted by Thoughtful_Flyer

Does the ploughed field normally have crops? If so, would they have operated had there been standing corn? If so and the same had happened it would presumably have caught fire!

There is no ploughed field at the end of the runway at Wellesbourne airfield, just the normal mown grass as would be expected. However, it might be prudent to do future runs in the reverse direction, as there are a lot more fields to cover before the Loxley Road is encountered.

[TEEEJ]

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[sycamore]

Anybody got an idea of the weight of the aircraft for these taxi runs...?

[Yellow Sun]

Originally Posted by sycamore

Anybody got an idea of the weight of the aircraft for these taxi runs...?

IIRC the ZFW used to be around 100K and 655 is likely to be a bit less than that. So, how much fuel would you put on, 10K all in the 1 and 2 tanks? Certainly less than 120K probably below 110K.

YS

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by Thoughtful_Flyer

Whilst it is usual to have traffic control if a road passes very close to the end of a runway, normally it is only used for an unusually large aircraft taking off or landing. I live in a city that has a airport with just such a setup.

No it all depends on what the airport operator decides; even something like a C150 could present a hazard when departing in some places.
I used to work at an airfield which had both 'on airfield' traffic lights plus another set outside the airport and both were set to red for all takeoffs and landings.

[common toad]

Luckily they didn’t have a strop snap during the pull. Otherwise there might well have been more than a Vulcan in the dirt. Idiots!

[Bill Macgillivray]

Sycamore, I would hazard a reasonable guess that the auw for this "exercise" would be about 108 -109 k. (going from my old op. manual).

[Fris B. Fairing]

So why all the earth works in front of the aeroplane?

[teej013]

Originally Posted by Fris B. Fairing

So why all the earth works in front of the aeroplane?

If you refer to the 1st picture, you will see that the AC came to rest against the hedge along side the road. so the A/C has already been pulled back some distance.

[Dan Winterland]

Out of interest which authority would regulate that?

Simple answer. None!

[Krystal n chips]

There's an interesting video on YT entitled Recovering Vulcan XM655 At Wellesbourne Airfield...it's about 20+mins long. I can't post a link because I'm a little uncertain as to copyright......however, there are some very "interesting " sub titles and commentary....."Green Flag " get a mention, as does...gas pipe...the weight is stated as 50 tons and those on board "get mentioned "...

[FullOppositeRudder]

So why all the earth works in front of the aeroplane?

Speculation on my part, but probably just restoring the area to its original state. It's a bit far over the horizon from here to be totally confident, but my theory would be that they removed the top soil from the tracks the aircraft was going to be taking on it's journey back to the hard to reduce as much as possible the obstruction it would present to the rolling of the wheels. The subsoil could be quite firm by comparison and present a suitably firm base for the tow out. I'm just basing this on occasional first hand experience in rescuing non aviation vehicles from somewhat similar situations.

[FullOppositeRudder]

Luckily they didn’t have a strop snap during the pull. Otherwise there might well have been more than a Vulcan in the dirt. Idiots!

Perhaps a rather harsh judgement? I would suggest that a lot of thought would have gone into the suitability and safety of both the process and the equipment. I don't think that luck played very much of a role here.