Fatal Accident Inquiries and Inquest
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I so wish that everybody who wants to make the military work environment into the same as a civil one would just stop.
I for one do not agree with FAI for military deaths.
Military life should be more dangerous than civil life.
Bring back crown immunity and all the other old differences and let our military just get on with it.
Crusades just bog us down and make us die of grinding risk aversion.
Just Stop it.
I for one do not agree with FAI for military deaths.
Military life should be more dangerous than civil life.
Bring back crown immunity and all the other old differences and let our military just get on with it.
Crusades just bog us down and make us die of grinding risk aversion.
Just Stop it.
Tourist, you've said all that before but never answered the question - What mandated regulations should no longer be mandated? May I suggest you read them and let the MAA know which ones to ditch. I'd be very interested in their response.
What we know for certain from many threads here is that if the regulations were simply implemented properly, long before you ever saw the aircraft, then many deaths would be avoided. All you're doing is shooting the messenger and supporting those who won't do the job properly.
What we know for certain from many threads here is that if the regulations were simply implemented properly, long before you ever saw the aircraft, then many deaths would be avoided. All you're doing is shooting the messenger and supporting those who won't do the job properly.
Tourist:-
Couldn't agree more Tourist. Their job is indeed more dangerous than civilian life, but made even more so by VSO's who order that Airworthiness Regulations, eg that ensure that your cab can actually get to close with the enemy without spontaneously exploding on the way there, should not be implemented but signed off as having been so.
The only risk averse that I am aware of are those same people who ensure that they compromise and hence silence their subordinates and unjustly finger others so that they carry the can. Now you may count that as all part of the deal, and no doubt have your own reasons for saying so, but I don't. The cost in blood and treasure over the years has been both great and pointless. It can only be arrested by having independent inguiries, such as FAI's and Coroners', into military aviation deaths, at least until the MAA and the MilAAIB are themselves independent of the MOD and each other.
let our military just get on with it.
The only risk averse that I am aware of are those same people who ensure that they compromise and hence silence their subordinates and unjustly finger others so that they carry the can. Now you may count that as all part of the deal, and no doubt have your own reasons for saying so, but I don't. The cost in blood and treasure over the years has been both great and pointless. It can only be arrested by having independent inguiries, such as FAI's and Coroners', into military aviation deaths, at least until the MAA and the MilAAIB are themselves independent of the MOD and each other.
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What we know for certain from many threads here is that if the regulations were simply implemented properly, long before you ever saw the aircraft, then many deaths would be avoided. All you're doing is shooting the messenger and supporting those who won't do the job properly.
The job of the military is to win a war.
Losing wars loses millions of lives.
The negligible number that dies in peacetime maintaining an unencumbered and capable military force with flexibility and a willingness to take risks without constant worrying about consequences from civil lawsuits is a reasonable price to pay.
Flight safety was not invented to save lives.
I will say that again.
Flight safety was not invented to save lives.
It was invented to "increase operational capability by......."
Somewhere along the way it was infected by health and safety until it became a process where the safest option was always the best.
Safe does not win wars, and losing wars is the most dangerous thing ever.
We now use innovation not to increase capability, but to make doing the same thing we always did safer.
New bigger, more powerful helicopters carry less troops more safely.
Any sane leader in the military knows that inviolable rules are unsuitable for the military environment.
The trick is knowing when to break them and by how much. That goes for pilots and senior officers running aviation programs alike.
We even applaud and revere rule breakers like Nelson.
Nothing has changed since his day.
We are drowning in lawsuits and FOI and their outcomes and the costs are crippling our military.
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Flight safety was not invented to save lives.
I will say that again.
Flight safety was not invented to save lives.
It was invented to "increase operational capability by......."
I will say that again.
Flight safety was not invented to save lives.
It was invented to "increase operational capability by......."
But don't be a cherry picker...throwing away lives, aircraft and money, through dangerous, complacent and sometimes blatantly stupid working practice, does not do much for operational effectiveness does it?
The MPA saga features elements of all of the above and now we don't have one. Which, as a maritime expert, I would suggest has diminished our maritime security and war-fighting abilities a tad - would you not agree?
so, as usual, it's a question of balance - which means the discussion has merit.
We are drowning in lawsuits and FOI and their outcomes and the costs are crippling our military.
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It has a valid place in the pantheon of military management.
This is what the invention of Flight safety did:
It made a fantastic difference in losses and thus improved operational effectiveness.
You might argue that everything done up to 1980 was worth the effort, though late 60s would be a better cost benefit point.
This, of course means that all the efforts since then have been utterly ineffective in saving lives.
It all just costs more and cuts capability for no benefit.
So lets go back to the rules and freedoms of the 60's and have fun!
If not, why not?
re the Nimrod, I wouldn't have grounded it.
Troops on the ground had a very high risk level at all times in Afghanistan.
The presence of Nimrod measurably lowered that risk.
I don't judge the lives of troops to be worth less than the lives of aviators, so why ground an aircraft to reduce an already low risk to aviators?
Yes, it could be said to be bad for operational effectiveness to lose a big aircraft like nimrod, but if you ground it you have lost it totally!
Last edited by Tourist; 25th Oct 2015 at 11:02.
Tourist:-
Interesting example. Was he a staff officer? Did he suborn the Royal Navy Seaworthiness Regulations? Was Victory not seaworthy before Trafalgar? Given the context of this thread and our discussion it would appear that is your point.
I always thought that his rule breaking was in battle, in order to win and win as soon as possible, hence saving life rather than squandering it. The complete antithesis in other words of the VSO's that I denounce.
We even applaud and revere rule breakers like Nelson.
Nothing has changed since his day.
Nothing has changed since his day.
I always thought that his rule breaking was in battle, in order to win and win as soon as possible, hence saving life rather than squandering it. The complete antithesis in other words of the VSO's that I denounce.
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Honest question, leaving aside our differences of opinion.
Do you actually believe that the VSO's in question broke rules to deliberately reduce our capability to wage war and to deliberately kill our servicemen?
Do you honestly think, outcome aside, that that was their intention?
I'm seriously interested to know whether you are using hyperbole or deluded.
When people make decisions, those decisions have consequences. In military terms, that often means lives.
When a man takes a gamble based upon probabilities, even 100/1 chances sometimes happen.
A mission that has only 100/1 chance of going wrong will tend to go wrong on average once in a 100 times.
That means that even though the mission is a good idea, sometimes it will go wrong.
That doesn't mean you should stop the mission. The risk benefit balance may be worth the risk.
Just because something goes wrong, doesn't mean it was a bad idea to do it.
Everything, and I do mean everything has a risk attached.
VSO's need to be able to make such calls without being stalked forever by the likes of yourself quarterbacking after the game or the whole system becomes unworkable.
Go look at the Falklands war.
A huge number of big risk calls made there. Most, but not all paid off. Should we hound those decision makers too?
Oranges and Apples, Tourist, as I suspect you well know. Can we not conflate tactical (or even strategic) decisions taken in war, that as you say gang aft a-gley, with decisions to save money at the cost of safety?
The latter was the intention of the VSOs that inflicted their policy upon Air Safety in the late 80's (funny how that matches your suggestion as to the pointlessness of Flight Safety from thereabouts). What did they think the result would be if not to increase Airworthiness related losses in equipment and personnel? The reason of course for them feeling compelled to take such drastic and irreversible action was the calamitous effects of new procedures introduced by AMSO. The result of such procedures was spelled out, the results of the subsequent attack on Air Safety was spelled out. The warnings were ignored, the messengers persecuted. The effects are still with us today and will remain so until we have an MAA and MilAAIB independent of the MOD and of each other.
Your graph of course looks very convincing, but the huge starting rate was caused mainly by pilot/aircrew error. That was whittled away by cultural change and training improvements which thankfully still apply. Hidden in the graph are airworthiness related accidents. They too will show some improvement thanks to technical strides in equipment performance. The point is that the improvement would have been even greater if military airworthiness had not been deliberately attacked in the meantime.
There is no point in saying that the rate is low enough so let's have fun. Every loss is someone's life and more loss of military capacity. That is the really annoying thing about this saga; in covering self induced losses (and each other!) these VSO's ensured a long term drain of life and military potential that continues to this day. I doubt that Nelson would have been very impressed!
The latter was the intention of the VSOs that inflicted their policy upon Air Safety in the late 80's (funny how that matches your suggestion as to the pointlessness of Flight Safety from thereabouts). What did they think the result would be if not to increase Airworthiness related losses in equipment and personnel? The reason of course for them feeling compelled to take such drastic and irreversible action was the calamitous effects of new procedures introduced by AMSO. The result of such procedures was spelled out, the results of the subsequent attack on Air Safety was spelled out. The warnings were ignored, the messengers persecuted. The effects are still with us today and will remain so until we have an MAA and MilAAIB independent of the MOD and of each other.
Your graph of course looks very convincing, but the huge starting rate was caused mainly by pilot/aircrew error. That was whittled away by cultural change and training improvements which thankfully still apply. Hidden in the graph are airworthiness related accidents. They too will show some improvement thanks to technical strides in equipment performance. The point is that the improvement would have been even greater if military airworthiness had not been deliberately attacked in the meantime.
There is no point in saying that the rate is low enough so let's have fun. Every loss is someone's life and more loss of military capacity. That is the really annoying thing about this saga; in covering self induced losses (and each other!) these VSO's ensured a long term drain of life and military potential that continues to this day. I doubt that Nelson would have been very impressed!
Last edited by Chugalug2; 25th Oct 2015 at 13:10.
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The military is given a budget.
That is a fixed amount of money.
VSO's decide what to spend it on.
Money spent on one thing cannot be spent on another.
Rightly or wrongly, VSO's decided to spend it on something else.
They didn't pocket it. They made no profit from it.
They made a decision to spend it in the area they thought it would do the most good for our forces.
Who knows, maybe the thing the spent it on saved lives or increased capability?
The fact that people died does not necessarily make it the wrong decision.
It is unacceptable for civil company to have deaths in an effort to increase profit.
The same does not apply to the military where the equivalent of profit is operational capability.
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On a more simplistic note...
Having watched, just a few hours ago, a senior and credible Scottish authority point out (and I quote exactly)...
It is mandatory in Scotland to hold a FAI when an employee dies at work
...and having read with my own eyes, the statement of one of Scotland's most senior legal ****s
I ask you Tourist...does it not p1ss you off just a little bit to find out that if you venture north of the border, you are unemployed and insignificant in the eyes of the law?
Having watched, just a few hours ago, a senior and credible Scottish authority point out (and I quote exactly)...
It is mandatory in Scotland to hold a FAI when an employee dies at work
...and having read with my own eyes, the statement of one of Scotland's most senior legal ****s
military personal in Scotland are not employed and don't have a job
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In fact, upon consideration, I'm not really that fussed what anybody thinks!
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I ask you Tourist...does it not p1ss you off just a little bit to find out that if you venture north of the border, you are unemployed and insignificant in the eyes of the law
Crown Office of Scotland and MoD please note.
DV
Tourist, wrong!
The bizarre decision by AMSO to discard spares stock-holdings and thence trigger an immediate cost saving was followed inevitably by a severe lack of spare parts, all of which had to then be ordered up individually, and if available were often the same parts that had been sold for a song and then re-bought for a King's Ransom. As you so rightly say:-
so the only solution was to raid yet another budget, which had hitherto been ring-fenced, ie that of Air Safety and in particular that of Airworthiness Provision. Annoyingly that in turn was protected by mandated regulations, so it was necessary to order those with delegated airworthiness responsibility to disregard the mandated regulations but sign them off as complied with. Annoyingly that requires the issuing of an illegal order. Annoyingly that is an offence under Military Law, which annoyingly VSO's are also subject to.
You may be content that they feel free to disregard the duty of compliance that subordinates are bound in law by, but I am not.
When you say that:-
You are wrong, insomuch as they have to spend it in accordance with mandated regulations, unless and until they be changed. They were not, they were simply disregarded and forgotten. Many today do not know that they exist because they are not told, not even by the MAA who also seem to be blissfully unaware. That doesn't mean that they don't exist and all are bound by them. Annoying, isn't it?
The bizarre decision by AMSO to discard spares stock-holdings and thence trigger an immediate cost saving was followed inevitably by a severe lack of spare parts, all of which had to then be ordered up individually, and if available were often the same parts that had been sold for a song and then re-bought for a King's Ransom. As you so rightly say:-
The military is given a budget.
You may be content that they feel free to disregard the duty of compliance that subordinates are bound in law by, but I am not.
When you say that:-
VSO's decide what to spend it on.
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Ok, lets say that what you say is true in its entirety.
VSO's needed some money and raided another department against regulations.
So what?
The money had to come from somewhere. Either that or lose a capability or operational effectiveness.
If you need to break rules then break rules.
In the aftermath, they have been backed from above.
Rules are not inviolable.
They did what officers are paid to do.
They took a risk based upon their judgement.
In this case it didn't pay off.
This has happened throughout history in all endeavours.
Some you win, some you lose, and in the military sphere losing means death to some poor buggers.
Officers have always sent men to their deaths based upon risk assessments.
The Falklands war involved huge judgement calls. We were always one Exocet away from a disaster and national embarrassment.
Because we won, the VSO's are heros. If we hadn't I bet there would be many like yourself whinging.
The C130 AAR aircraft were a total bodge that paid off. They were very high risk though..
That is military life.
None of us are pressed men. We can all leave at any point. If I die in a UK military aircraft, or indeed in any aircraft it is my responsibility. I make choices and I own the consequences.
This generation needs to take responsibility for our own lives.
VSO's needed some money and raided another department against regulations.
So what?
The money had to come from somewhere. Either that or lose a capability or operational effectiveness.
If you need to break rules then break rules.
In the aftermath, they have been backed from above.
Rules are not inviolable.
They did what officers are paid to do.
They took a risk based upon their judgement.
In this case it didn't pay off.
This has happened throughout history in all endeavours.
Some you win, some you lose, and in the military sphere losing means death to some poor buggers.
Officers have always sent men to their deaths based upon risk assessments.
The Falklands war involved huge judgement calls. We were always one Exocet away from a disaster and national embarrassment.
Because we won, the VSO's are heros. If we hadn't I bet there would be many like yourself whinging.
The C130 AAR aircraft were a total bodge that paid off. They were very high risk though..
That is military life.
None of us are pressed men. We can all leave at any point. If I die in a UK military aircraft, or indeed in any aircraft it is my responsibility. I make choices and I own the consequences.
This generation needs to take responsibility for our own lives.
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hey did what officers are paid to do.
They took a risk based upon their judgement.
In this case it didn't pay off.
This has happened throughout history in all endeavours.
Some you win, some you lose, and in the military sphere losing means death to some poor buggers.
Officers have always sent men to their deaths based upon risk assessments.
They took a risk based upon their judgement.
In this case it didn't pay off.
This has happened throughout history in all endeavours.
Some you win, some you lose, and in the military sphere losing means death to some poor buggers.
Officers have always sent men to their deaths based upon risk assessments.
It may balance things a little...or maybe not. Anyway, it's a good book.
I'm out.
Tourist no-one is challenging the right of VSO's to take risky decisions in time of war, as I have repeatedly said. This risky decision (to subvert Air Safety) was simply to cover the predictable and predicted effects of AMSO's incompetence.
While we are composing a reading list, may I add this to TOFO's:-
https://sites.google.com/site/militaryairworthiness/
While we are composing a reading list, may I add this to TOFO's:-
https://sites.google.com/site/militaryairworthiness/