78 Sqn Chinook Crash (20 years ago)
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Pulling up an old thread but I am seeing Sue Chitty and her son Richard today. They are down this way to visit David's headstone...30 yes on Monday, wow.
I shall make sure at some point I raise a glass.
I shall make sure at some point I raise a glass.
ZA 721 was a terrible loss 30 years ago, taking 10 lives with it. It was also a terrible harbinger of even worse to come some 7 years later, when ZD 576 took 29 lives on the slopes of the Mull of Kintyre. All these years later the similarities are striking; inconclusive BoIs that were severely throttled from above, a hamstrung AAIB input, and a cover up of now well known scandals. As we pay tribute on Monday in memory of those who died whilst doing their duty, perhaps we might dwell upon the need to ensure that Military Air Accident Investigation is not so compromised in future by being made independent of the Operator (the MOD) and the Regulator (the MAA), which in turn must be similarly independent of the other two. Of all his posts on this thread, I choose tucumseh's #40 as a summary of the problems posed by the events of 27th February 1987:-
MoD investigations never dig and ask the next obvious question. In this case, a thorough overhaul of an obviously unfit for purpose QA/QC system would have provided a fighting chance of preventing recurrence. In Aug 1992 the CHART report by the RAF's own Inspector of Flight Safety cited ZA721 as an airworthiness related accident. That speaks volumes, given the official line was Cause Unknown. Was this an oversight or IFS making a point to the Chief Engineer and ACAS? Given the rest of the report, the latter. MoD's reaction? Withhold CHART from all concerned. My point is that there is a clear and unbroken chain of evidence from these 1980s failures to Haddon-Cave and then Lord Philip.
One small example - in 1998 new Chinooks were being delivered with similar serious assembly defects. At Boscombe a starboard avionics rack (about 6 feet high, 3 feet wide and crammed with black boxes) came loose and fell on a contractor, just after the aircraft had landed upon initial delivery. (On the pan outside RWTS hangar). The fixing bolts had been over-torqued and crushed the honeycomb bulkhead so that something weighing hundreds of pounds was literally hanging by a thread. In control runs, split pins had not been split. One part fell off and hit the pilot on the head as he was walking out the back. It had secondary bonding that consisted of a rolled up ball of 24awg equipment wire stuffed behind Nav systems. Nav problems? Always check bonding first. It matters not that these were not actuator problems - they were serious QC failures and indicative of a very poor ethos. MoD's reaction was exactly the same. Boeing are a protected species and nothing was done, except each defect (not fault) was quietly fixed as and when it was spotted. Except, the problem is that a defect (as opposed to a fault) indicates contractor liability arising from a poor design. That is, we were content to fire fight instead of getting to the root cause.
Haddon-Cave agreed that there were savings at the expense of safety, but what of pandering to a contractor on the basis of preserving relations, but knowing this places aircrew lives at risk? The next question would be who benefited from this.
One small example - in 1998 new Chinooks were being delivered with similar serious assembly defects. At Boscombe a starboard avionics rack (about 6 feet high, 3 feet wide and crammed with black boxes) came loose and fell on a contractor, just after the aircraft had landed upon initial delivery. (On the pan outside RWTS hangar). The fixing bolts had been over-torqued and crushed the honeycomb bulkhead so that something weighing hundreds of pounds was literally hanging by a thread. In control runs, split pins had not been split. One part fell off and hit the pilot on the head as he was walking out the back. It had secondary bonding that consisted of a rolled up ball of 24awg equipment wire stuffed behind Nav systems. Nav problems? Always check bonding first. It matters not that these were not actuator problems - they were serious QC failures and indicative of a very poor ethos. MoD's reaction was exactly the same. Boeing are a protected species and nothing was done, except each defect (not fault) was quietly fixed as and when it was spotted. Except, the problem is that a defect (as opposed to a fault) indicates contractor liability arising from a poor design. That is, we were content to fire fight instead of getting to the root cause.
Haddon-Cave agreed that there were savings at the expense of safety, but what of pandering to a contractor on the basis of preserving relations, but knowing this places aircrew lives at risk? The next question would be who benefited from this.
Last edited by Chugalug2; 25th Feb 2017 at 13:56.
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Avoid imitations
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I remember your uncle Dave. He was a student at Shawbury when I was there instructing on the Gazelle.
Way back in the early posts, mention was made of Malcolm Pledger. We shared a lot of Whirlwind time in Cyprus, including 'collecting' a vast amount of kite string on main and t/r hubs and a rapid 'arrival' on Ladies Mile !. I saw, somewhere, that he had become 'Staish' at Shawbury but that was some time ago.
I lifted Malcom Pledgers Whirlwind back to base in Cyprus after an engine failure (we were there with Pumas after the Turks invaded the north). He was Staish at Sy in the nineties.
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Does anyone know if there is a memorial stone in the Falklands for the crew of ZA721, i know there’s a blade memorial fro ZA715 which crashed in 1986. I am currently on 78Sqn at Swanwick and looking to put something together to remember the crews that lost their lives, and hopefully the current 78Sqn can remember them in some way. Any help would be appreciated.
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There is stuff on Pprune. By coincidence I will be in the
Falklands Jan next year.
https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-329162.html
Falklands Jan next year.
https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-329162.html
Does anyone know if there is a memorial stone in the Falklands for the crew of ZA721, i know there’s a blade memorial fro ZA715 which crashed in 1986. I am currently on 78Sqn at Swanwick and looking to put something together to remember the crews that lost their lives, and hopefully the current 78Sqn can remember them in some way. Any help would be appreciated.
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Hi Katie,
I was on 18 Sqn with Dave Browning and he was a terrific bloke, great fun and great company. I miss him and the whole crew that died that fateful day. I had just finished my tour in The Falklands, and had air-tested that very same Chinook about a week before the crash, it still makes me think that we are all here by the grace of God.
Regarding the cause, my dim memory seems to remember (and it was widely believed by all the operators (modern speak for pilots) that it was a DASH (Differential Air Speed Hold) runaway; a very insidious causal factor and widely practiced thereafter in the sim at Aberdeen. If the runaway was not caught almost immediately it was impossible to stop it as there physically wasn't enough "back stick authority". As far as I am aware, even though we knew that sometime during the sim sortie the instructor (Dave Ryall) would introduce this snag, No-one caught it in time-the result was obvious. Please forgive my aging memory if some of my words are not absolutely text book but they are true.
RIP old friends both from MPA and the Mull.
I was on 18 Sqn with Dave Browning and he was a terrific bloke, great fun and great company. I miss him and the whole crew that died that fateful day. I had just finished my tour in The Falklands, and had air-tested that very same Chinook about a week before the crash, it still makes me think that we are all here by the grace of God.
Regarding the cause, my dim memory seems to remember (and it was widely believed by all the operators (modern speak for pilots) that it was a DASH (Differential Air Speed Hold) runaway; a very insidious causal factor and widely practiced thereafter in the sim at Aberdeen. If the runaway was not caught almost immediately it was impossible to stop it as there physically wasn't enough "back stick authority". As far as I am aware, even though we knew that sometime during the sim sortie the instructor (Dave Ryall) would introduce this snag, No-one caught it in time-the result was obvious. Please forgive my aging memory if some of my words are not absolutely text book but they are true.
RIP old friends both from MPA and the Mull.
I think it fair to suggest we will never be 100% certain of the exact cause, but was it not considered 'most likely' an engineering quality issue (not FI associated) relating to the fwd SUBA controlling spool valve, with the aft LCTA clutch failure being a contributing factor.
Gone, but never forgotten.
Gone, but never forgotten.
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78 Sqn Chinook Crash (20 years ago)
Hi Katie,
I was on 18 Sqn with Dave Browning and he was a terrific bloke, great fun and great company. I miss him and the whole crew that died that fateful day. I had just finished my tour in The Falklands, and had air-tested that very same Chinook about a week before the crash, it still makes me think that we are all here by the grace of God.
Regarding the cause, my dim memory seems to remember (and it was widely believed by all the operators (modern speak for pilots) that it was a DASH (Differential Air Speed Hold) runaway; a very insidious causal factor and widely practiced thereafter in the sim at Aberdeen. If the runaway was not caught almost immediately it was impossible to stop it as there physically wasn't enough "back stick authority". As far as I am aware, even though we knew that sometime during the sim sortie the instructor (Dave Ryall) would introduce this snag, No-one caught it in time-the result was obvious. Please forgive my aging memory if some of my words are not absolutely text book but they are true.
RIP old friends both from MPA and the Mull.
I was on 18 Sqn with Dave Browning and he was a terrific bloke, great fun and great company. I miss him and the whole crew that died that fateful day. I had just finished my tour in The Falklands, and had air-tested that very same Chinook about a week before the crash, it still makes me think that we are all here by the grace of God.
Regarding the cause, my dim memory seems to remember (and it was widely believed by all the operators (modern speak for pilots) that it was a DASH (Differential Air Speed Hold) runaway; a very insidious causal factor and widely practiced thereafter in the sim at Aberdeen. If the runaway was not caught almost immediately it was impossible to stop it as there physically wasn't enough "back stick authority". As far as I am aware, even though we knew that sometime during the sim sortie the instructor (Dave Ryall) would introduce this snag, No-one caught it in time-the result was obvious. Please forgive my aging memory if some of my words are not absolutely text book but they are true.
RIP old friends both from MPA and the Mull.
- Hello. I have just stumbled across this thread. I thought you might like to know that I visited David Browning’s grave today as a volunteer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to carry out our regular check on the state of the headstone. If anyone is interested in paying a visit David is buried in the Great Cornard cemetery (what3words SPEEDING:UNDERTOOK:GREW for the gate, and he is beneath the 3rd cherry tree on the left of the central path) and his headstone is in fine condition. If I can work out how to post a picture I will do so. All best.
I think it fair to suggest we will never be 100% certain of the exact cause, but was it not considered 'most likely' an engineering quality issue (not FI associated) relating to the fwd SUBA controlling spool valve, with the aft LCTA clutch failure being a contributing factor.
.
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The AAIB images of the Fwd SUBA were not included in MoD's report. They show that a hole was not drilled to take a roll pin. I've seen them, and they are utterly damning.
The Aft PUBA had seals fitted incorrectly, incorrect back-up rings fitted, back-up rings were not fitted at all, and the system had suffered a 'gross failure'.
Flt Lt Carl Scott, later Air Cdre, gave evidence under oath in 1996 about how the Board of Inquiry was 'directed' in order to protect Boeing; and in 2012 MoD finally conceded in writing that it would not 'prejudice relations between the UK and US'.
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