Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[TURNBULL]

the AOC 38 Gp AVM Day

Did I miss something?

[Brian Dixon]

Turnbull,
thanks for spotting the error.

From Air Cdr Blakeley:
I am sorry, I had meant to correct the 38Gp and forgot - Day was of course AOC 1 Gp as was Johns - if you could post an apology on the web site I would be grateful.
End

What do you make of the rest of the post?

Kind regards,
Brian

"Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook

[Tandemrotor]

A specific response from Mikehegland, or JP (or indeed WOrkER - where did HE go?) to the above post, pointing out where it is in error, would be very welcome (If not a little surprising!)

[Hot 'n' High]

Greetings all, Glad to see the fight goes on - or should I say "sad" as this should have been sorted ages ago.

The post from Brian with the comments from Air Commodore Blakeley is probably one of the better summaries as to what this has all been about. The last two paras of the Air Cdre's missive really sums up the situation; firstly a pair of Senior Officers attempting to “play” God for reasons best known to themselves and then the abject failure of the MoD and the appropriate Senior Politicians to act in the light that, as evidenced in the pages and pages of posts, as well as the findings of the BoI itself, insufficient evidence exists to determine the cause of the accident on that fateful day and that the charge of gross negligence simply cannot be applied.

What both Wratten and Day failed to understand is that, through their small-minded “tough-guy” stance, the chance of learning real lessons from the crash which could go on and save lives in the future has been totally overshadowed by legal wranglings through to the outright conspiracy theories which have been charted by this Thread. I am a firm believer in there being no smoke without fire. With no evidence to hand linking Wratten and/or Day to the following, (I’m sure others may have it) I would put money on a cover-up regarding the introduction into service of the Chinook Mk 2 into service. At least that might explain their collective actions. If not, what are we to make of them both?

“…upholding the integrity of the chain of command…”? If what took place through Wratten and Day epitomises “integrity”, one has to despair of a Military establishment which propagates such men and promotes them to such levels. Sad really – all of this. Even worse, they will not be the last. However, this particular Crusade must continue.

[Mikehegland]

Hear, Hear. Well said.

[BEagle]

Secondly, on 1 September 1994 a Tornado (with a full ADR and CVR fit) crashed into the ground killing both pilot and navigator. The BoI stated that they “could determine exactly what had occurred in the cockpit." The pilot appeared to have deliberately flown the aircraft into the ground. The Board was satisfied that the final control inputs led directly to the loss of the aircraft." Despite there being full evidence available from the ADR and CVR, Higher Authority disputed the BoI’s findings and decided that any "consideration of Human Failings" would serve no useful purpose”. The cause of the accident was finally allocated as: Not Positively Determined - No findings of negligence.

But the cause was well-known throughout the RAF, if I recall correctly..... Perhaps when the FOI comes in, the full CVR and ADR transcripts will be released?

[meadowbank]

I'd like to add to John Blakely's comments, reproduced by Brian Dixon, above.

The 'logic' used by the Air Marshals appears to be that if ZD576 didn't deviate its track from the point at which the waypoint was changed until impact, then it must have been guided to its impact point under full control of the pilots. However, this is a false supposition. I suggest that the fact that the aircraft didn't turn towards its new waypoint may well indicate that it was no longer under the full control of the pilots, whether due to control jam, UFCM, FADEC-induced engine runaway or whatever. It may seem an alien concept to some, but it is perfectly possible to fly in a (broadly) straight line, whilst being 'out of control'.

Further, their airships' suggestion that the pilots were already negligent by the time of the waypoint change, because they were flying too quickly, is also absurd if, as seems likely, they were flying in the clear air that seems to have been present beneath the 800-900 ft overcast.

[Tandemrotor]

meadowbank hi

So are we saying that we accept as FACT that the aircraft flew on a straight course, and a gentle climb, (perhaps even at high steady speed?) from waypoint change to impact?

Or is this simply another possible (or probable?) scenario which 'fits' an assumed cause?

In other words, which comes first? Do the facts lead us to the cause, or does an assumed cause help to guess a profile from the virtually non-existent factual evidence?

It's just that I can't recall ANY factual evidence apart from a geographical position, and approximate altitude (nobody knows how accurate!) at the moment of waypoint change, and evidence retrieved from the point of impact.

I am not including a Boeing simulation, modelling a possible final 2.9 secs for 2 reasons. Firstly it is a 'model' of a possible, and not a record of an 'actual', sequence of events.

Secondly, I am quite happy to accept that in the final 2.9 secs, the crew would have been doing all they possibly could to avoid ground contact. I would expect NOTHING less! However, that simple fact does little to explain how the aircraft came to be in such a situation in the first place!

[Susan Phoenix]

Season's Greetings to Brian et. al. on this our tenth Christmas without those great twenty eight great men(and one great woman) who contributed so much to life.
I just want to say bravo for A.C. Blakeley - I so agree with his expression of disappointment at the continual- non productive-"slanging" and repetitive arguments on the site.
PLEASE can we all address the points made by combining energies to continually hassle (err-I mean "lobby") the MPs and the Prime Minister to ensure that someone will discover their integrity and clear Rick and Johnathons' names?
Incidentally Mrs Blair never did bother to reply to my letter to her in her professional capacity as a Human Rights legal eagle! I doubt she will bring it up at one of her new public speaking engagements in the States, either. I did - and received many questions from the audience about the state of the British Governments support for their fighting forces!!!
As a result of such support from further afield I urge you all to Keep up the good work to bring a successful New Year to the Cook and Tapper families - they so deserve some peace.
One final point,before one of those misguided letters follows about widows such as myself not "moving on" after all these years - I can assure everyone that i am happy, content and busier than ever but know that my husband would have expected me to support the other families who have not been given the chance to move forward with this unecessary , if not illegal denegration over their heads.
Happy Christmas and bonne courage.

[meadowbank]

Responding to Tandemrotor

I cannot "accept as FACT that the aircraft flew on a straight course, and a gentle climb, (perhaps even at high steady speed?) from waypoint change to impact", as all that we know is that the aircraft flew from the waypoint change to impact, without knowing what went on between those two points. The BOI "concluded that the most probable cause of the accident was that the crew selected an inappropriate ROC to safely overfly the Mull of Kintyre" and this, together with evidence of the time taken from take-off to impact, along with the AAIB's estimate of impact speed, has prompted messrs Day & Wratten to conclude, without any actual evidence, that the 2 pilots were not only negligent but to a gross degree.

However, several alternative hypotheses exist as to what might have occurred between waypoint change and impact. Some of these are bizarre and merit little attention, but there are 3 different and plausible events that have been put forward, which were originally dismissed by the BOI but which warrant closer examination:

i. A transitory control jam.

ii. A FADEC-induced engine runaway.

iii. A UFCM.

The occurrence of any of these 3 possible malfunctions could explain why ZD576 ended up striking the cloud-shrouded hillside. For what it's worth, I favour the UFCM as the most likely explanation because there is the precedent of a US Army Chinook suffering an extreme UFCM in a high-speed cruise, which resulted in the aircraft narrowly avoiding what would have been another unexplained accident. Importantly, when that Chinook was subsequently minutely examined, no evidence of any malfunction could be found. It is therefore hardly surprising that the AAIB could find no trace of any fault in the wreckage of ZD576. Eerily, the pilots of the American Chinook stated that, contrary to any logic, they had discovered that they needed to use full left pedal to be able to control their Chinook - could this explain why examination of ZD576's wreckage revealed 77% left pedal tavel? I believe that this fact alone should have caused the negligence charge to have failed a standard court test of 'beyond reasonable doubt', let alone 'beyond any doubt whatsoever'. I further believe that this eerie parallel between the two accidents was somehow missed by the BOI and the two Air Marshals. If the UFCM had occurred shortly after waypoint change, it would explain why, having selected the new waypoint, the aircraft appears not to have turned towards it. There would also have been adequate time for a manoeuvre similar to the US Army incident to have occurred.

It also seems to me that the AAIB and, consequently, the BOI and the two Air Marshals, appear to have assumed that, because ZD576 is estimated by the AAIB to have hit the ground with 31 deg of pitch, 5 deg of left bank and a flight path angle 20 deg above the horizontal, it must have been in a flare manoeuvre, trying to avoid ground impact. However, if the conditions in cloud were as poor as reported by the lighthouse keeper (15-20m), the crew would not have had sufficient time to produce the impact attitude from the Air Marshals' assumed steady climb towards icing conditions. Indeed, even if they had seen the hillside as much as 100m before impact, it seems extremely unlikely that the impact conditions could have been achieved, particularly if due allowance were made for a moment's disbelief, followed by normal reaction time. I suggest, therefore, that what has been perceived throughout as a 'final flare manoeuvre' is more likely to have been an attempted recovery from a nose-low UP (Unusual Position) induced by one of the plausible events listed above. Indeed, the fact that the aircraft impacted the ground with 5 degrees of bank could even be considered as evidence that the pilot's were not flying a 'final flare' as it would be unlikely that they would have imparted bank in that situation.

So, where do we go from here? As a result of correspondence with the MoD, I received a letter from the Armed Forces Minister, which included the final statement:

the Department is not convinced that a control jam or UFCM occurred and then cleared itself before the final manoeuvre, leaving no trace.

is not convinced?!? That tells me that neither event can be ruled out, which means that even they have doubts.

The same letter also states:

The Reviewing Officers determined that the pilots should, by the waypoint change, have slowed down and climbed to a safe height, or turned away. The fact that they had carried out neither of these courses of action pointed inevitably towards the finding of negligence.

One can argue about the meteorological evidence (or lack of it) until the cows come home, but I believe that the weather (apart from over the Mull and similar terrain) is very likely to have been perfectly satisfactory for a low-level transit at 2.5nm per minute (or thereabouts). It would be odd, particularly in the area concerned, for conditions of low visibility to be experienced outside cloud, especially with 20 kts+ of wind blowing. Indeed, the fact that the waypoint change was apparently not made until just under a mile from the coastline indicates to me that the crew was perfectly 'happy' with their situation.

So let's consider the Air Marshals' points from the quote above:

Q. Why didn't they 'slow down and climb to a safe height'?
A. I suggest that there was no need because they were flying in perfectly satisfactory weather, could see that the Mull was shrouded in cloud and were able simply to select a waypoint further up the coast to fly to. If they had climbed up, they would probably have worsened their situation by climbing into cloud or, at the very least, by losing visual contact with the landmass. Also, given the icing limitations on their aircraft, what would have constituted a safe height? Their decision to remain below the general cloudbase was therefore good airmanship (AM Wratten, in particular, is very keen on that, I seem to remember!)

Q. Why didn't they turn away [from the Mull]?
A. Again, because they didn't need to. They had good in-flight conditions, knew where they were with reference to the end of the Mull (let's not split hairs about 100m left or right of track), and had had plenty of time to make a decision about what to do having seen the cloud on the Mull. Indeed, the fact that they don't appear to have slowed down is evidence to me that the weather was good, not that they were being negligent.

I hope I have shown that the very things that have led the Air Marshals to believe that the crew was negligent could just as easily be evidence that they were making sound airmanship decisions (apparently in character with their previous flying records) right up till the point at which the control jam, UFCM or engine runaway changed a routine transit flight into a disaster.

There is no evidence of negligence and, to his great credit, the President of the BOI saw no evidence of negligence and wasn't prepared to change his verdict when pressured (allegedly more than once) by two officers 3 and 4 ranks above him. The then Prime Minister and Defence Secretary agree that a mistake has been made, Michael Howard has stated that a Tory Government would instigate a review by a High Court judge, yet something prevents Messrs Blair & Hoon (and some contributors to this thread) from seeing this as well.

I urge all who agree that the charge of negligence should be dropped, to write to their MP (House of Commons, London), copied to the Prime Minister (10 Downing St), making your views known.




(Original posted at 1650 on 16 Dec)

[John Purdey]

Chinook

Meadowbank.
I promise that this is my very last post on this long running topic, but tell us this.
If any incoming government were to ask an independant judge to examine all the evidence, and he were then to decide that the verdict of gross nengligence was justified, would you or would you not accept it? JP

[meadowbank]

John Purdey

Thank you for your response.

I think I know how you'll respond to this, but my answer has to be "No, I'd carry on trying to have the negligence verdict overturned - the decision to find the pilots negligent was unfounded, even 'beyond reasonable doubt', let alone 'beyond any doubt whatsoever'."

However, as several erudite legal minds have already applied their expertise to this case and found there to be no grounds for a finding of negligence, including what amounts to the highest appeal court in the Land (the House of Lords Select Committee), I doubt that an extension to this campaign would be necessary, provided the chosen judge did not have a vested interest (eg went to the same school as one of the Air Marshals or belongs to the same 'secret society' as, say, Geoff Hoon). This may sound paranoid, but I understand that Sir William Wratten resigned from the Royal Aeronautical Society because he felt that, as a member, he was not being backed up sufficiently by the RAeS. He seems to have been unable to accept the fact that the RAeS may have considered that his decision was a poor one and therefore not worth supporting.

I would have thought that Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle would be the right sort of person to examine all the evidence. He was Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1988-96 and would apply his intellect to the case but, as you know, he has already done that and pronounced that there are no grounds for a negligence finding. We could therefore save time and simply apply the ruling of the Select Commitee, which many of us, naively it turns out, believed would happen as a matter of course. No doubt AM Day or Wratten, Mr Blair or Mr Hoon would object to Lord Jauncey's selection and would insist on someone that subsequently turned out to be from the same former university debating society, same golf club or the same freemasonry lodge as one of the aforementioned. This is the only kind of circumstance in which I can imagine any objective legal mind might come up with any conclusion other than that a finding of negligence against the pilots is unwarranted.

It is possible that the pilots were negligent - I cannot deny that - but I and the House of Lords' Select Committee share the opinion that there is insufficient evidence (indeed almost none at all) to find them negligent 'beyond any doubt whatsoever'. I, like Air Cdre Blakely (see post above) can only assume that there is some sort of hidden agenda for not having already set aside the negligence findings.

John, I would ask you to read my previous post again and ask yourself whether you could honestly say that, without any doubt whatsoever, the pilots of ZD576 were definitely negligent or whether there might be an alternative explanation, beyond the control of the two pilots, for this tragic accident.

[ShyTorque]

From the House of Lords report, Quote:

"56. Important parts of the hydraulic flight control systems were housed in a small closet, colloquially known as the "broom cupboard", at the rear of the cockpit. There were two control pallets containing respectively 23 and 26 threaded inserts for component attachment. On 10 May 1994 the thrust balance spring attachment bracket on the aircraft's thrust/yaw control pallet had detached; this was due to the somewhat inadequate method of attaching the inserts to the pallet. This detachment had resulted in an undemanded flight control movement (UFCM) in the collective system.[23] An engineering report of the following day relating to this incident stated among other things,

"Detachment of the bracket within the flying control closet during flight could present a serious flight safety hazard, with the danger of a detached bracket fouling adjacent flying controls".[24]
57. After the accident the investigators found that both inserts for the thrust balance spring attachment bracket had detached as well as most of the other inserts to both pallets. The AAIB stated, "as an insert could apparently pull out of the pallet without appreciable distress to the components necessarily resulting, the possibility that insert(s) had detached prior to the accident could not be dismissed" (para 7.4.2). In the Flight Control Summary the AAIB reiterated that "the possibility of control system jam could not be positively dismissed" and further stated that "little evidence was available to eliminate the possibility of pre-impact detachment of any of the pallet components" (para 7.4.9).

Unquote.

So. A failure of the flying controls HAD previously occurred and was put down to a design fault in the flying control system. EVIDENCE in the wreckage suggested that this could have occurred again on the flight resulting in the accident.

Surely not an insignificant point?

Here was an aircraft type, without the normally required Release to Service and certainly without an icing clearance, that had previously suffered both undemanded engine runaways and flight control failures. Neither fault had been resolved by a modification or design change. The aircraft was put into service on this fateful day, in marginal weather conditions, where the crew had no option to climb to Safety Altitude, due to icing conditions, to carry a particularly valuable group of passengers.

The negligence is undoubtedly there, but where SHOULD it have been placed? Management chain? Severe likelihood of obvious serious legal repercussions! Aircrew? Whitewash? Scapegoat?

[John Purdey]

Chinook

Meadowbank.
Thanks for the courteous response. It was indeed what I expected. As to your question, I remain unconvinced by suggestions of influences outside the control of the crew, but that is what you expected too!
Regards and farewell. JP.

[meadowbank]

JP

I'm intrigued by your choice of phrase:

I remain unconvinced

This is very similar to the phrase used by the MoD:

the Department is not convinced

My dictionary defines 'unconvinced' as 'not firmly persuaded', so this leads me to believe that both you and the MoD are, in fact, partially persuaded. If this is the case, there appears to be an element of doubt in your minds about the negligence finding.

Don't go yet, JP - a couple more posts and we'll have rescued you from the 'dark side' (and maybe the MoD too?)!

[Tandemrotor]

John Purdey asked if campaigners would accept the verdict of a high court judge, if that verdict were, that negligence WAS proven.

I fail to see where else the campaign could go AFTER such a verdict!

It must draw the whole issue to a close.

All I would say is this: Any inquiry MUST comment on whether the negligence verdict can be upheld using the original standard of "Absolutely no doubt whatsoever"

That phrase is the key to this burning injustice.

Since Sheriff Sir Steven Young (the equivalent of a high court judge?) at the Fatal Accident Inquiry, was unable to make such a finding, EVEN ON A BALANCE OF PROBABILITY!

I don't think campaigners would have anything to fear from such an inquiry.

I suggest that is PRECISELY why we haven't had one!

What was your point JP?

[walter kennedy]

Tandemrotor
I owe you a limited apology – most of you could not have been familiar with the system I had described for the following reason:
The aircraft equipment needed to get bearing and range to a portable is referred to as (US nomenclature) ARS-6;
I have been informed that it is not standard on any CH47-Ds;
The earliest that I can establish that the RAF had such equipment of its own was when ARS-6 was fitted as an urgent operational requirement on some RAF Chinooks to support NATO in Bosnia – fully a year later on than June 1994 – previously, I could not grasp that the UK would have lagged behind “also ran” NATO countries on such a ubiquitous system;
However, the ARS-6 uses its own two blade antennas, not ones already on the 47 and the RAF configuration had the system installed as a roll fit on a pallet for movement between aircraft – this means that the system was easily transferable between, say, a 47-D (which may have had this configuration at an earlier date) and an HC2.
So, at least the Americans were telling the truth when challenged at the crash site – they were indeed looking for THEIR equipment.

[ShyTorque]

Walter,

Some of us were trying to make you understand that such a system was NOT fitted to RAF SH for some time, but you seemingly chose not to believe us.

[Tandemrotor]

Walter

Thank you.

Since I did not serve in Bosnia, as you say I am not familiar with this equipment.

[walter kennedy]

ShyTorque
The point is that the system existed and could easily have been loaned at the time for particular exercises being easily transferable between these aircraft (there was a 47-D stooging around at low level in NI at the time of ZD576’s departure from whence the equipment could have been had).
From a navigation systems point of view, the use of such (with a misleading fudge) fits what happened.
But what evidence is there if the hardware was removed from the wreckage?
If, say, they had been pressured by someone (MI6?) to tighten up the approach for security reasons by using the Americans’ gismo, this would have been a bit unusual; these officers were able professionals who would have paid attention to detail - when presented with an unusual procedure they may have asked if a particular SSR code was applicable – caught on the hop, Americans can be refreshingly open (eg the “looking for their equipment" bit) and one may have suggested one that they used. If 7760 was set before the impact (as discussed before, the idea of such dial switches being so far removed from the expected usual by “soft object” impacts is unlikely and the attempted change by the crew in an urgent situation not normally recommended or likely in these circumstances), as can be confirmed or not from the radar recordings (which no interested party seems willing or able to pursue), this is the possible evidence.
Do not waste their effort – they had the wit to tell us what they were doing.