Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[Brian Dixon]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone else noticed that whenever there is a Government response to any formal review of their stance, and that review offers a different conclusion we (PPRuNers and campaigners) always have the same old discussions as to rate of climb, navigation etc. Not only that, we always arrive at the same conclusion – that no one knows for absolute certainty what did happen and that the criteria of ‘absolutely no doubt’ has not been met.

So why is that? Maybe it’s because the Government always regurgitates the same, tired old mantra that they have doggedly stuck to for the past eight years and we start our argument all over again.

Now is the time for us to break the cycle. The MoD has made it clear that they are the ones dictating the rules. Why do I say that? Simply because for the past eight years, irrespective of whom has been in Government, the story has remained exactly the same. Therefore, one is forced to conclude that the MoD is calling the shots (unless of course they are using an SA80!). The Ministers are being selectively briefed resulting in them taking the side of MoD.

Take a look at the latest document entitled The Government’s response to the Report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Chinook ZD576, House of Lords Session 2001-02. (HL Paper 25 (iii))

Not once is there a comment or opinion attributed to Government.
“The Ministry of Defence has never denied…”
“The Ministry of Defence remains of the view…”
“The Ministry of Defence has examined…”
“The Ministry of Defence has examined an extract from…”
“The Department’s view…”
“The Ministry of Defence welcomes…”
“The Ministry of Defence has never denied…”
“The Ministry of Defence welcomes the fact…”
“The Ministry of Defence has examined all the alternative hypotheses…”
“The Ministry of Defence notes that…”
“The Ministry of Defence does not agree…”
“The Ministry of Defence considers that…”
“In the Ministry of Defence’s view…”

Although everyone had a strong belief that this was the case, I don’t think it has ever before been so glaringly obvious who is behind this fiasco. It is the MoD who is dictating to Parliament. Our elected MPs appear powerless or too scared to do anything about it. This has huge constitutional implications (as I have said on many occasions lately).

The MoD is the sole owner of all information relating to the accident. It is the Department that decides what is and what isn’t of evidential value, and what is and isn’t released into the public domain. Hardly impartial now is it?

I shall be writing to Minister Hoon, to point out that the response is in all but name, the product of the Ministry of Defence, and call for him to make every item relating to this injustice available for independent examination. There have been two extremely honourable gentlemen – James Arbuthnot and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who have had the courage to publicly state that they were wrong to initially support the MoD findings. Both have said that in their opinion, they had not been briefed with all the facts. Now is the time for Minister Hoon to examine all the evidence for himself, or appoint an independent agent to do it for him.

There will certainly be a debate in the House of Lords, and probably one in the Commons too. I also recall that the Air Force Board could do something about overturning the findings, but don’t get your hopes up too high. Look at the Board members:

Secretary of State for Defence
Minister of state for Armed Forces
Minister of State for Defence Procurement
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence
Chief of the Air Staff (Air Chief Marshal)
Second Permanent Under Secretary
Commander-in-Chief Strike Command (Air Chief Marshal)
Commander-in-Chief Personnel and Training Command (Air Marshal)
Controller Aircraft (Air Marshal)
Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Air Vice Marshal)
Director General if Equipment Support (Air Vice Marshal)

Hardly independent!

I could go on (as if I haven’t already!) about the way MoD treat Government with contempt, by talking about the recent comments on the SA80, but I don’t want to dilute my efforts on this issue. If anyone wishes take that matter up, I wish them well.

The MoD has the attitude that “We answer to no one.” Well tough! They should answer to Parliament. And that is the question we should all now be asking Hoon, and our own elected MPs. It will without doubt be asked in the House of Lords upon their return.

My thanks, as always, to everyone
Regards
Brian
"Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook

[MrBernoulli]

Very good Brian!

Take note all, with his post above, Brian is trying to keep this train on the track.......and I think he does a good job. Don't all get lost in the minutae of this case. Concentrate on keeping the train rolling and the small stuff will look after itself.

To put it another way - not all the battles will be won but the war HAS to be won otherwise there will be no justice for the crew.

[Captain Gadget]

Having no rotary experience (other than as a passenger), I have resisted the temptation to get stuck in to this worthy thread until now. However, Brian D, BEagle, Yozzer et al have all proposed what seem to my (admittedly inexpert) eye to be plausible alternative explanations for what happened at the Mull on that awful day.

At the very least, the ac type had sufficient documented problems to make plausible the explanation that any one of them - even if not the direct cause of the crash - might have caused distraction sufficient to make continued safe flight in marginal conditions impossible, with tragic results. As far as I can see, in the very worst case, whilst it might not absolve the aircrew of all responsibility, neither is it nearly enough for a finding of gross negligence (which is, of course, exactly what the Board of Inquiry thought). As for 'absolutely no doubt whatsoever', well my considered opinion is unprintable on this forum, and others have probably said it enough times already.

Having met the Wrattweiler I am not one bit surprised at the line he has taken; indeed, I would have been surprised if he had taken any other. Having served under Day (many years ago), however, I am both surprised and disappointed - but then, toeing the party line on this one doesn't exactly seem to have harmed his career, does it?

Brian, be of good heart and fight on. Hoon, get your head out of your ar$e.

Jon and Rick, rest in peace; you have the respect of both your own peers and of the Peers of the Realm. The MOD/politico stragglers will either eventually fall into line or be trampled underfoot as they deserve.

[Low and Slow]

I was having lunch at Farnborough last week, (better than working!) and this subject came up.

A man I could not, (and perhaps should not) indentify, but apparently a senior GD branch type, suggested I research the following:-

1. How many desceased pilots have been convicted on "gross negligence" in the 10 years prior to the ZD576 accident.

2. What level of proof was used on those occasions.

He implied that this would shed light on my confusion as to what the hell the MOD was up to!

I was not in a position to inquire further, and thus could not press him, so I am undertaking to find an answer here.

[Yozzer]

Have I been misled?

My MP did not sign the EDM, nor did he write to tell me why not, so in finest YOZZER tradition, I sent him a snotogram which had it been for real would have guaranteed 2 black eyes and a broken nose. I today received this by way of response:

Dear YOZZER

Thank you for your message concerning the Chinook crash.

I am afraid there is a long-standing convention that frontbenchers do not sign EDMs. However, I would like you to know that the Conservative Party takes this matter so seriously that our former Chairman, David Davis, instigated an entire Opposition Day debate, out of the limited time made available by the Government, to discuss the crash and the various reports which have followed. Serious doubts remain and the Government is arrogant to have ignored the conclusions of two Parliamentary Committees.

Yours sincerely

YOZZERS MP

Does this mean that whilst Tony was at lunch, a Tory "has been" briefly mentioned the Crash but was poo poo`d due to Henman getting walloped at Wimbledon. ......because that is what it looks like to me, or am I wrong?? Oh, and PS.... Please vote Conservative because all this b0110x is not our fault, and this is what you get with those awfull Labour types.

[TL Thou]

Low and Slow...hmmmm good question! Let's see if we can get you an answer from Buff on that one.

Yozzer, your MP is talking billicks. Send off another letter saying

"DURRRRR! A good number of your fooking front bench has signed the EDM including your Chief Whip!!"

But in a roundabout way it sort of looks as if he is on side

[Archimedes]

Yozzer,

Bit more of an effort to tweak Buff's nose than that. The debate was called in response to the Lord's report. Opposition debates are quite important - in many ways, they are about the most important thing that the opposition can do. They certainly rank above EDMs in the grand scheme of things, since EDMs rarely get debated: there was a full debate (which ran from 1930 to 2200)

David Davis put the case pretty well:

"We are seeking simply to correct a miscarriage of justice that has gone on for too long... Because of the absence of hard evidence of what happened on that fateful day, the investigating board made no finding of negligence on the part of the pilots. Nor did the two station commanders who reviewed those findings. Nevertheless, the two air marshals to whom the investigating board's report was submitted concluded that the pilots were negligent ...

... RAF rules in force at the time provided that deceased air crew could be found negligent only when there was "absolutely no doubt whatsoever". That is a higher standard of proof than the "beyond reasonable doubt" required in criminal trials, and it is very much higher than the "balance of probabilities" laid down for civil law. In practice, the "absolutely no doubt whatsoever" standard means that every other possible explanation of the crash must be positively disproved. The House of Lords Select Committee demonstrated that the air marshals had come nowhere near that level of proof...." (and there's much more)

Buff was there to answer - suggesting that the government took this a bit more seriously than they do with some motions where the Sec of State's bag-carrier leads for the government - and, as you would expect, Pooh-poohed it. You have to remember that President Tony only appears in parliament for photo-sessions or when he feels he needs to raise his profile on the news.

(I'm sure this must have been covered in better detail at the time)

Although any communication from any politician or their acolytes should be viewed with caution, yours was generally honest.

Of course, if the party is taking it very seriously, this means that we can rest assured that there will be another deabte to discuss the continuing intransigence of the government and the unwillingness of the MOD to listen to the views of a variety of distinguished parliamentarians who have expressed the view on three (or is it four now?) occasions that the MoD is wrong and should ammend the verdict - thus raising important constitutional questions that demand answers (along, of course, with the still-unanswered questions about the tragic events in June 1994).

Perhaps you might like to suggest this to your MP - and suggest that if a further debate doesn't happen, it suggests that his party is not taking the matter as seriously as they're trying to make out?

[Brian Dixon]

Low & Slow,
good questions from your friend from Farnborough.

Big paper sift going on to try to get the answers for you, but initial recollection is that the Chinook accident is the only accident where deceased aircrew have been found grossly negligent.

I'm still checking, so may have to post a different answer soon.

Yozzer,
thanks for your hard work with your MP. Keep plugging away. Remind them of the constitutional issues whereby the MoD appear to have no regard for the process of Parliament. Invite him to talk things over with Mr Davis and Mr Arbuthnot. They will surely put your MP in the picture.

Find out in which department of the front bench your MP sits, and see if there can be any link made to the accident. If so, that may be the line you could take with them.
This may help: http://www.conservatives.com/frontbench.cfm

As always,
thanks to everyone for their continued support.

Regards, as always
Brian
"Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook

[TqNrT4NgGreenlightCWP]

My MP - Owen Paterson (Conservative, Shropshire North) has just responded to my e-mail of several weeks ago. I suspect that I am in the same constituency as YOZZER, as the reply is identical. If not then the Tories are 'cutting and pasting' replies to this topic - surely not!

Sadly, I think any further pressure on him is unlikely to produce any results, as the house has risen for it's very short summer recess - so see them all in the autumn then! In any event the debate IS more progress than any EDM, as stated above.

[Gainesy]

All.
Take a look at the "F-15" thread in the ATC forum.

[John Nichol]

Low and slow & all - the matter of aircrew being found guilty of negligence in the past was well researched many years ago when we first started looking at this case. A number of deceased aircrew have been found guilty of gross negligence - some from full cvr/adr fit aircraft and some (I can't the exact number) from non adr aircraft. The circumstances varied as did the available evidence.

To be frank, it is a spurious trail - it only serves to complicate an already complex issue trying to examine and explain further accidents and BOIs.

IMHO the case is at something of an impasse at the moment:

The Lord's inquiry showed that areas of doubt exist, it also showed that what the MOD refer to as "undisputed facts" (especially during their reconstruction of the final seconds of flight) are actually theories:

From the conclusions (para 148) -

"We consider that Sir John's conclusions on these matters must be weakened by his reliance on matters which he treated as facts but which have been demonstrated to our satisfaction to be not facts but merely hypotheses or assumptions".

The position we are now in is that, to all intents, the MOD is arguing that 'black', is in fact, 'white'. That poses a real problem because there is almost no reply to that stony faced denial of reality. You can discuss the case for as long as you like, you can lobby as many MPs as you want - let's hope they all sign the EDM - but the MOD continues to deny what almost everyone else can see.

So where now? There will almost certainly be further debates but what can ACTUALLY be done? A difficult question that one.

Perhaps we will know more in October after the Lord's debate (if an ammendment to Lord Jauncey's motion to 'take note' of the report is allowed) on the issue.

[Low and Slow]

JN:

I would have to disagree that this is a spurious trail. How could you find any aircrew “grossly negligent” unless you had ALL THE FACTS!

DO ADR and CVF provide them? My guess is, that there have been many civil accidents where even multi-channel ADR and CVF has not proved conclusively what happened.

The clear implication of the man I talked to, was that aircrew had previously been convicted of gross negligence with “similar” levels evidence. If nothing else, shouldn’t the campaign seek to clear their names as well? Where the ZD 576 pilots convicted due to president? Or an over-zealous air safety campaign?

Surely this is a way forward?

Would the facts of ZD 576 be any different if ADR had been fitted, and shown the aircraft functioning normally, and performing the terminal manoeuvre that AIB said it did? And if the CVR recorded no cockpit conversation 45 seconds prior to the impact?

It seems to me, that the AM's would still be disputing the facts!!

[slj]

Low and Slow


I feel inclined to agree with JN on the negligence bit. Rest assured that Day and Wratten would have used any precedents that would have helped them. They did not.

I have just been looking at the House of Lords Select Committee Report and there is nor reference that I can find to previous cases of negligence.

I do seem to recall somewhere along the line of mention (perhaps in one of the many postings) about, I believe a tornado crash some years before the chinook crash. My memory suggests that case was not helpful to their airships.

You may be interested in part of the Select Committee Report on Sir John Day and facts

135 During the course of his evidence Sir John on more than one occasion emphasised that his conclusions were based on fact and not on hypotheses. It is therefore appropriate to look at some of the matters which he treated as fact. (Page references are to HL Paper 25(i).)
(a) "We know that about 20 seconds before impact with the ground the crew made a way point change" (Q 280, p 118 col 1). This figure which derives from the Racal report on the SuperTANS is based on a power down speed of 150 knots and a straight course from the WP change to impact at that speed. It is therefore at best an estimate and not a fact since the only factual evidence of speed at or after the change is the indication from the ground speed and drift indicator of 147 knots at initial impact (AAIB report, paragraph 7).
(b) "We know for a fact … that some four seconds before impact the crew started to flare the aircraft" (Q 280, p 117 col 1; Q 1088). Not so. The Boeing simulation, using assumptions now shown to be incompatible, produced this result. On no view could it be described as fact and there is no evidence either way as to what caused the aircraft to impact the ground in the position described in the AAIB report.
(c) "They had chosen to fly straight over the Mull of Kintyre, and we know that because they had set up this 1000 feet a minute ROC" (Q 301). There is no evidence that they had chosen to overfly the Mull, and indeed the making of the way point change suggests the contrary. Furthermore the 1000 feet a minute ROC derives entirely from the Boeing simulation with all its deficiencies referred to above.
(d) "What is for sure is that they were in a 1000 a minute cruise climb in that last 20 seconds before the final four seconds of flare" (Q 304). This is far from being sure given the deficiencies in the simulation already referred to.
(e) "We know they did not pull emergency power" (Q 311). Sir John later agreed that the impact could have destroyed any evidence of emergency power being pulled (Q 1097).

End Select Committee Report extract.

Doesn't fill one with confidence that a man unable (or unwilling) to differentiate fact from opinion might make decisions that could have dire consequences for us all.

[Low and Slow]

SLJ

I hear what you say. It seems odd, that I was given such a cryptic and bum steer

Having been involved in researching the TAILWIND allegations in the US, it just occurs to me to leave no stone unturned, because officaldom always does leave stones unturned and usually it takes those with a fresh pair of eyes to find such stones.

... but hey! What do I know?

[slj]

Low and Slow

Don't give up. There are stones left unturned.

I had a look through the evidence to see if there were any unfavourable precedents to the two pilots. I found none.

There may be unturned stones in cases of similar problems to the Chinook pilots where gross negligence was not found. Is this the steer your contact was giving you?

There are sufficient RAF personnel on this BB to recognise or remember similar situations where gross negligence was not proven.

Reading the Air Marshalls' addendum to the original inquiry makes interesting reading. Day's finding rested on the simulation. His facts (actually propositions andhypotheses) rested on the simulation. The Lords destroyed every facet of their case with ease as seen in my earlier posting and theri commenst on the simulation.

[TheAerosCo]

Who, in these circumstances, exactly is the MOD? In particular, which entity within the MOD provides the necessary continuity over the years to allow the stock response to be trundled out time and time again? And who has the necessary influence/authority over that body to ensure that that stance is maintained? I'm probably being naive, but curious nevertheless.

[Low and Slow]

WHO EXACTLY IS THE MOD!!

Hurrahh!! The AerosCos

My point exactly! There is obviously a policy which bears on this position. WHAT IS THE POLICY and where did it come from?

This crucial to moving things forward, and my guess is, that the answer lies in previous air accident rulings, or extrapoltations of previous rulings. Maybe ones, where no one was found negligent?

Unfortunately I do not have access to the data. Maybe those who do could help?

[Ex-truck]

Is blame a logical option?

It's some time since I have read PPrune and was prompted by the recent MOD decision not to overturn or review the conclusions reached by Messrs Wratten and Day. Two things still strike me as odd. First, although I have not looked up the original, earlier posts suggested that QRs/MAFL state that deceased servicemen can only be held to be negligent if there is no possible doubt . As there must always be "possible doubt", it follows that deceased servicemen can never be held negligent. Secondly, I am suspicious that the MOD refusal to entertain the views of numerous other official bodies is most likely to relate to implications of possible financial recompense to both the Mull of Kintyre victims and other historical cases where any admission could result in retrospective responsibility.

Perhaps my questions have already been discussed and I have missed the posts; I would still be interested in hearing contemporary views.

[BEagle]

Or perhaps even a charge of corporate manslaughter?

The financial liability question is one to which I have yet to see an answer................

[MrBernoulli]

A colleague has had a reply from his MP, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, stating that as well as extensive correspondence with the Minister of State for the Armed Forces and other interested parties on this matter, he has put on record his support of the Mull of Kintyre Group who can be assured that he will support their endeavours wherever and whenever is practicable.

Mr Clifton-Brown feels he can’t actually sign EDM 829 as he is subject to the Front Bench Collective Responsibility, which effectively precludes him from signing petitions and EDMs and he fears that very few EDMs actually receive effective action anyway.

So, Mr Clifton-Brown appears to be on-side and if the Group needs his support they should call on him!