PKPF68-77
re your points:


(1) The MOD reply implies that they cannot identify this individual – a real pity that.
(2) If they had no need or instruction to approach it very closely, they should have taken action earlier than the position of waypoint change (very close in) – if they had to get closer, for whatever reason, their problem would not have been that they could not see it but rather judging how far off they were – they would not have trusted the SuperTANS to have been accurate enough after a sea crossing.
(3) You could download and read Boeing's “Analysis of Available Data” (Mitchel), a decent effort, wherein it is calculated that they had indeed started to slow down significantly but that the increase in tail wind as they closley approached the landmass and crossed the shoreline compensated for the reduction achieved before the final few seconds.


A simple explanation for their actions is that they intended to approach a particular point on the Mull but something they were using as a local reference misled them in their judgment of range to go – that something would have had to have been trusted to have been more accurate than the SuperTANS as they had discarded the only useful waypoint to them , A, that had been stored in the SuperTANS.

JP

As you will know, this is how you responded to my question:
Post:3853You KNOW you avoided answering, and simply posed ANOTHER question!

Do we HAVE to play these infantile games?

I ask AGAIN, in view of the following:
Do you believe this aircraft, at this time was fit for purpose?

Thank you.

Chinook
 

Tucumseh. My answer is that, not having access to the paperwork, I do not know whether it was fit or not. Perhaps Brian ("I have the documents") could help us. But now that I have given you my rather unsatisfactory answer, will you now replt to mine? REgards. JP

Chinook
 

Seldom. Apologies for the fumbled numbers. JP

Shy,
the litigation came about following damage to a Chinook during testing in the USA on 20 Jan 89. This legal action, between the MoD and Textron Lycoming went to arbitration and was settled in 1995 when the MoD was awarded $3 million in damages. No cash exchanged hands, but the compensation was recovered by way of amendments to other contracts (can't remember the exact wording).

It was said that the litigation was due to faulty testing procedures, but the MoD have been unable to locate the documents relating to this failed test procedure :hmm:

In response to a Parliamentary question by Mr Frank Field, the then Armed Forces Minister, John Spellar replied, "At the time of the RAF Board of Inquiry into the Mull of Kintyre accident, Sir William Wratten was not aware of this litigation and did not recall the Wilmington incident that led to this legal action being taken. Sir John Day was aware that there had been a problem with FADEC testing, but did not know of the extent of the Department's legal claim."

No one thought it prudent to bring the matter to the attention of the President of the BoI either!

Mr Purdey,
contrary to what the Secretary of State for Defence would have you believe, I do not have all the documents. However, as he has said that they are available, I look forward to their arrival in the near future.

I don't know for certain whether the aircraft was fit for purpose, but as it had just 57.15 flying hours on the clock since the upgrade and it had the following problems, I would hazard a guess that it (ZD576) was not fit.

8 Apr 94 - Returned from Boeing. Has a FADEC related problem.

21 Apr 94 - Torque mismatch of 40% during transit to hover.

22 Apr 94 - No 1 engine is replaced.

26 Apr 94 - No torque indication to either engine with the engine control levers at the flight idle position. No 1 engine is replaced again.

3 May 94 - GPS failure on the RNS252. Transmitter is replaced.

5 May 94 - GPS fails again. This time the whole thing is replaced.

9 May 94 - No GPS feed to the RNS 252. The transmitter is, again, replaced.

10 May 94 - Thrust balance spring pallet detaches from the collective lever due to a bonding failure. Thrust & yaw assembly was replaced.

17 May 94 - During descent to low level the No 1 engine emergency power caption light illumunates three times. Engine temperature went beyond normal levels. No 1 engine was removed and rebuilt. Part of the FADEC system was returned to the manufacturer for examination.

26 May 94 - Numerous warning lights illuminate, including a 'master' warning light and a No 2 engine failure notification. Aircraft diverted.

31 May 94 - Aircraft delivered to Aldergrove. IR jammer has a problem and is replaced.

1 Jun 94 - During the first flight, there is a problem with the PTIT guage. It is also noted that there is interference on the UHF/AM radio, caused by the SuperTans equipment. Neither problem could be recreated on the ground.

Not to mention, of course that the AAIB investigators could not positively determine pre-impact serviceability.

My best, as always,
Brian

"Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook

Chinook
 

Brian. Many thanks; at last some facts to chew on! (By the way, it was you who said 'I have the documents' from which I suppose it was reasonable to think that you had them all). With all good wishes. JP

Brian, thanks for your answers. I hadn't seen the list of unservicabilities suffered by the actual airframe and somthing therein glares out at me.

Please check your pms.

Mr Purdey

You wrote to Brian:

I don't know the context of Brian's quote but his statement wouldn't appear to mean that he had ALL the documents. Even the MoD doesn't have ALL the documents, or at least it frequently claims not to have the ones that have been requested!

By the way, I have a question for you:

Do you agree with AM Wratten that the crew was grossly negligent prior to selecting the new waypoint and, if so, why?

Regards,

Meadowbank

Chinook
 

Meadowbank. I'm afraid you must have missed many of the much earlier exchanges on the subject of negligence, and with due respect I suggest you scroll back. Have a good Christmas. Regards to all. JP

meadowbank,

To save you a long search, Posts 1124 - 1134 give the clearest evidence of why Mr P supports the Wratten view. Sadly, he failed to answer the last question (1134).

PKPF68-77
You are a weather person and so should be able to go over all the available information from all sources with an experienced eye – and not get stuck on the conditions at Mac - It was only very near the Mull that conditions were bad coming from NI – the cloud base was well up and the isolated patches at low level were evidently not a problem during the sea crossing. As I have said before, they would only have had a problem if they had had to approach very closely for some reason.
If you want to consider their airmanship and their a/c's capabilities you could look at their path over the Antrim hills earlier in the flight. Boeing's analysis has it that they must have kept very much on track and maintained their high cruising speed all the way to the position of waypoint change to have gotten there by the time they did. So you can assume a track of 027 and plot this on very large maps. You would then perhaps see that they had negotiated about 10 miles of hills with very little headroom beneath the cloudbase, presumably exercising the controls vigorously and demonstrating that they were not at all lacking in ability that day.
Indeed, it is amazing that, after that leg, anyone could entertain the idea that such a crew could not have avoided what is essentially an isolated low hill. However, as I have been saying for a while, if they had a need to go to a point on the Mull, the conditions were bad for visual judgement of range as they approached.

An even more damning Boscombe Down letter
 

Although I have given details of this a long time ago there is, in my view, an even more damning Boscombe Down letter dated 6 June 1994 from the Director of T & E (P&A) to DHP and MOD in addition to the OC RWTS letter aired last week on C4 news. The 6 June letter was not being wise after the event - it concerned matters that had been dicussed at a meeting on 25 May where, inter alia, it was noted that Boscombe had serious concerns about 15 in-service incidents of which 4 were listed in some detail as being a cause of major concern. The last of these four was on ZD 576 on 19 May as detailed in Brian's last post. What is interesting is that following the incident on 19 May ZD 576 was fitted with the engine from the first of these 4 "major" incidents which had been "no fault found". These in-service incidents were, if the letter is to be believed, the second main cause of Boscombe Down stopping their flight trials - thus contrary to what was said in Parliament it was not just a case of FADEC software and BD pedantry about the lack of an audit trail. Were these in-service incidents relevant to the accident - well we don't and never will know. Should they have been looked at by the BoI - yes very definitely - might they have raised more doubts - well I certainly think they should have done

As far as I am aware there is no evidence that the BD letters, and certainly not that of 6 June, were ever brought to the attention of the BoI, and I could not even be certain that the Reviewing Officers saw the 6 June letter (although we do know that the MOD Main Building copy went to Hels2, Flight Safety and ACAS with a note commenting that "by the time you see this it will have been overtaken by events"!). What we also know is that when DHP provided his brief to the MOD Legal Team for the Sherriff's FAI he did not mention either of these key BD letters - I would not think that he would have forgotten about them, so being cynical my personal assumption would have to be that MOD did not want these brought up as they would then have had to give them to the other side - just a personal opinion which I would be happy to be corrected on. As we all know, even without the benefit of the further doubts these letters would almost certainly have created the Sherriff did not anyway accept the gross negligence verdict. Also, as far as I am aware the 6 June letter did not get shown to the H of L Committee, but I am not at home so cannot check the transcripts to confirm this.

JB

Hi PKPF68-77,
apologies. The tumbleweed, as you put it, is down to having other things to attend to.

I'll to answer your questions, as best I can.

1. Unfortunately, we will never know the answer to parts i - iv. The Captain of the aircraft has the ultimate say on things. However, that was not how Special Forces crews operated. If any of the crew were unhappy, they had equal say in the matter. They trusted each other's decision making, and opinions, absolutely. If anyone was not happy, they woould have made their views absolutely clear! The problem is that there was no cockpit voice recorder, so we will never know for certain.

2. Unlikely, but we will never know for sure.

3. Not really an answer, but I can't get my head around it either. Rick had actually carried out a low level abort in that area some weeks earlier and all crew knew the area really well. Why things ended up as they did will always be a mystery, but there are too many anomalies and incertainties to be able to say, with absolutely no doubt whatsoever, why this tragedy occurred.

My best, as always.
Brian

"Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook

If only we had the answers, PKPF68-77!

I can also advise you all that our submission to the MoD is now available on the Campaign website. Feel free to have a look. I'm sure it will spark a debate!
The Campaign for Justice for the Pilots of ZD576 (for those of you who have forgotten).

My sincere thanks to Chocks Wahay for all your help in making this possible. :D:D:ok:

Kind regards,
Brian

"Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook

Thanks Brian, I've just downloaded it and should therefore finish my appraisal in 11 months time!;)
Could I also mention how delighted I am that the Chinook boys and girls in AFG have won the "Best Military Unit" award in the Millies (SUN Military Awards) prog on Sky1? I'm sure that Rick and Jon would also have been delighted that the essential and dangerous work that they do is so appreciated by their customers, for whom they in turn expressed their awe. Well done Wokkas, thoroughly well deserved! :ok:

John Purdey,

Thank you for your, as ever, polite reply. I didn't miss your earlier posts on the subject, but many opinions have been expressed on this thread and remembering exact positiions taken by each individual contributor is beyond my brain capacity. Thankfully, Pulse 1 pointed me in the right direction and I am now able to confirm your position (wouldn't it have been more polite simply to express it again? ;)), which is:

We know from the yachtsman's evidence that the visibility outside of the clouds was "certainly in excess of 3 miles and possibly 5 miles". Further, he stated that, at the time of the accident, he could see the Antrim coast, which was 7 miles away.

Having flown in the area on many occasions, it is quite normal for excellent visibilty to exist outside any low cloud/hill fog patches and it is improbable that the pilots could not see the base of the Mull with the clouds sitting on it, when the waypoint change was made. Indeed, it is quite likely that, given their higher altitude (than the yachtsman's) this phenomenon was visible on (or soon after) crossing the Irish coast, just 16 nm from the Mull.

With a perfectly legal 5 nm (or more) visibility (even for flight in a fast jet at far higher speeds) the crew continued visually towards the hill, waiting for the appropriate moment to turn left towards Corran. There is nothing negligent in the course of action that I have just described.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain what I'm missing up to the Waypoint change? Merry Christmas to you and yours.

PKPF
There are some stunning, and highly relevent, high res aerial photos of the Mull lighthouse from several angles on a site marinas.com - you can view for free - hit the "map" button and zoom in like on google earth - hit the lighthouse icon and you will see the photos.
The landing area I have referred to (by waypoint A) stands out like a dogs ball.
.
Not being rude, PK, but I thought you still lived in the area - I seem to recall suggesting to you before last summer that you take some photos of the mist yourself (say from a boat) - I managed to take a few (and have posted some) and I live on the other side of the world.
I am also rather disappointed at your descriptions of weather formation - does it really matter if it is from a polar bears backside or whatever the tech terms were - it was blowing from the south over a fair bit of sea after a summers day - tends to be a bit moist? - cool it a bit and voila - common/predictable that it woulkd form on such headlands.
While you did at least use the "upslope" word, you did not describe what happens when a strong wind hits a sloping headland - that the lower layer gets compressed, speeds up, gets cooler, reaches its dew point well below the start of the oro cloud - veils the lower slopes following them - you can actually be above it but below the oro cloud. You must have seen it?
Just keep everything confusing like the others, eh?

Vulcanite2
 

Many thanks Brian. I have just downloaded the submission and Government reply, and will wade through both after Christmas. However, the MOD reply seems to be the same old stonewalling which is most frustrating, especially for you after all your hard work.

My best wishes as always especially for Christmas and 2009; remember the parable of the importunate woman who got there in the end"!:ok:

And so, upon reading and digesting the MoD’s response I find nothing where they explain away – for it is their accident to explain away – the specific issue raised of hydraulic contamination found in the crash aircraft.
A fractured tie-bolt that linked the pilot controls and the hydraulic servos operating the flight control systems also remains a possible cause. The undisputed evidence found: “The bolt was badly manufactured, with a second, redundant and roughly drilled split-pin hole in the threaded area.”

The MoD say it is not important to know the height or speed of the aircraft at Waypoint change. Negligence had occurred by the time the Waypoint change was made (at a time unknown). The belief the crew had inputted a WP change a postulated 18-21 seconds/1.75km before impact was found wanting when Boeing conceded the simulation could in no way be used to prove what was at best a theory working backwards.

I was curious to know more from Boeing, so I visited them at their military plant in Philadelphia, where ZD576 was born and updated. The Spanish fleet of Chinooks was being updated at that time and Boeing reps. graciously showed me around, allowing me to see the 'broom cupboard' controls area, the wiring, where a key tie-bolt would go. No-one at Boeing I spoke to knows why the Chinook crashed.

The MoD has had a special team of civil servants working the Chinook file. The aftermath has taken up hundreds if not thousands of hours of their time. Brian's suggestion that a more accurate finding would be to say Cause Not Positively Established/Unknown has merit. After all, all we want is the truth and it is that finding that seems the most truthful based on the available facts.

With new details based on eye-popping memos from Boscombe Down, Whitehall should let right be done. Sir Kevin Tebbitt's influence should force the department to move toward legitimacy. We're all tired.

The echo of tragedy surrounding the Mull is that even with the voices and commitment of prime ministers (Major, Thatcher), MoD secretaries of state and junior ministers, Scottish Secretaries, Northern Ireland secretaries, peers, the ministry of defence sits remote and dangerously detached.
Remarkable, the MoD has authority still on its side each time it replies in the negative to common sense argument. But with each year that passes it loses further shine from its shield of legitimacy and over further time it will have few defenders when its most natural defenders are us all.

I hope this diagram will make it easier to visualise the orientation better - the cross at the bottom is the position of waypoint change (WPCHX) and the red line going up the map represents the bearing to Corran; also, a red line follows 035 mag (the course setting as found on the HP's HSI) which goes through the crash site.
It is clearly nonsense to think that after having changed the waypoint to Corran they would have been safe if they had turned onto that heading.
Nav info relative to Corran from where they were was worthless in comparison to the still useful waypoint A - there had to be a reason for their effectively discarding the GPS/Doppler nav system.
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...2CORRAN50K.jpg

I'm afraid that the longer this has gone on the more and more pointlessly over-analytical it has become. Gross negligence seems a bit unfair but let's face it, the aircraft in question was not found to be unserviceable prior to the crash so what do you expect the establishment to say?

Yes, the crew were making do with less than ideal circumstances (chopping and changing between the Mk.1 & Mk2, crew duty issues, restrictive icing clearance etc) but hey, when are circumstances 100% ideal on SH? Rarely, I can tell you. Improvise, adapt, overcome. That's what they'd been taught and that's what they were doing. If they weren't happy they wouldn't have got airborne in the frst place.

No-one seems to countenance the thought that the crew, like countless SH crews before them, might have just been 'cuffing it' on a low-arousal task. Dissecting every last detail of what was a routine flight is wholly counter-productive because a crew will often make things up as they go along. Yes, there'll be a broad plan to get from A to B but the finer detail often changes for any number of reasons ranging from the trivial to the safety-critical. With this in mind, over-analysing the minutiae of the crew's actions just seems desperate.

Nothing will be proven, whether it's regarding waypoints, rotor overspeeds, spurious captions or whatever. As admirable as the campaigners intentions are, you just appear to be grasping at straws and are clearly fighting a losing battle. Sorry if the truth hurts.

Exactly the point of the whole thread, and the campaign. So you agree and thanks for your suppport.

Was it serviceable?
 

VSF

Shy Torque has pointed out the purpose of this thread and I agree with him and indeed some of your comments since any attempt to define the cause of this accident is impossible - but then you don't find people guilty of Gross Negligence on this basis either. In the search for the truth that you claim to have found, you state that the aircraft was not found to be unserviceable prior to the crash - it was, of course not proven to be seviceable either - read the full AAIB conclusions. Of course if the BOI does not get given all of the relevant evidence relating to serviceability, aka in this case airworthiness, they may not look as widely as you might expect them to. We have not yet seen any evidence that this letter was shown to them, the Sherriff's FAI, or the other committees that have investigated this tragic accident - indeed I sometimes wonder if even the Reviewing Officers knew of its existence. This input from the Flight Clearance Authority is hardly grasping at straws - did you include it in your search for the truth? The bits in bold are my input.


File Ref: ADD/308/04 dated 6 June 1994

CHINOOK MC MK 2 - CA RELEASE TRIALS References:

A. A&AEE Letter Report TM 2210 - Chinook HC Mk 2 - Interim CA Release Recommendations.

1. You will be aware that at Reference A we were unable to recommend CA Release for the Chinook HC Mk 2 aircraft due to unquantifiable risks associated with the unverifiable nature of the FADEC software. However, we offered advice and proposed limitations aimed at minimising any risk associated with unpredictable FADEC software behaviour in the event that it became operationally necessary to use the aircraft prior to verified software becoming available. This advice assumed that the reliability and integrity of the hardware in the engine control system was adequate, as appeared to be the case from rig, bench, Service experience and integrity studies.

2. Since the introduction of the HC Mk 2 into Service in Oct 93, we are aware of at least 15 engine related incidents in a total of 1258 flying hours; this excludes those incidents that occurred during tests associated with the overspeed limiter checks. Of the 15 incidents, 4 are- considered to have particularly serious implications and are discussed below:

a. RAF Odiham Incident Signal DTG 081730Z MAR 94. ZA 704 - No 2 Engine flamed out after FADEC Reversionary Switch selected during pre-flight checks on the ground. No fault found.

b. RAF Odiham Incident Signal DTG 281232Z AFR 94. ZA 681 - No 1 Engine rapidly shut down after FADEC Reversionary Switch selected during pre-flight checks on the ground. No fault found.

c. RAF Laarbruch Incident signal DTG 1309232 MAY 94. ZA 671 – Nr rose rapidly to exceed 120% after both FADEC Reversionary Switches were selected during pre-flight checks. No fault found, but forward and aft rotor head tie bars were found to be distorted, indicating that the overspeed limiter system had failed to function.

d. RAF Odiham Incident Signal DTG 191545Z MAY 94. ZD 576 Emergency Power Caption illuminated twice in flight and once on the ground. PDT of No 1 Engine reached 950°C. No fault found, but blueing and minor cracking evident on blade tips of turbine nozzle assembly stators.

3. Three of the above incidents occurred on the ground during FADEC Reversionary lane checks, and there is in place a restriction on the manual selection of Reversionary mode in flight. However, we no longer consider this to be an adequate safeguard against the possibility of a potentially serious in-flight incident. The Reversionary mode is a vital safety feature in a full authority digital system and as such has to perform in a reliable and effective manner. At some stage we must expect a primary lane failure in flight which will result in the automatic selection of "Reversionary Mode" but experience to date suggests that the basic requisites of that system may not be met.

4. Whilst we are aware of the very considerable steps you are taking to determine the causes of these incidents and of the ongoing investigations involving a report from HSDE, the Textron 'White Paper', the EDS Scicon verification study and the T55 software block change proposals, I have to state that the serious, frequent and unexplained incidents to which I have alluded, have eroded what confidence we had in the Chinook HC Mk 2 engine management system. This unease has grown despite our meeting on 25 May. The unquantifiable risks identified at the Interim CA Release stage may not in themselves have changed but some have become more clearly defined by events, to an extent where we now consider the consequences of the risks and the probability of an occurrence to be unacceptable.

5. As a result of our concerns for the flight safety of the aircraft, I have regretfully taken the decision to suspend Chinook HC Mk 2 flight trials until such time as we are satisfied with the explanations for, and solutions to, the above incidents. Furthermore, we strongly recommend that you make our concerns known to the RAF in order that they may consider their, own position.

6. Please be assured that this decision has been taken in complete isolation from the tragic accident that occurred on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June, and that we remain committed to pursuing the outstanding CA Release trials as soon as our flight safety concerns are overcome. In the meantime, we will of course continue to provide you with whatever advice and assistance we can in your deliberations and to help bring the outstanding investigations and studies to a satisfactory conclusion.

JB

Grasping at straws mate. There are a whole host of things that can't be proven, some on one side of the argument, some on the other. It can't be proven that the pilots weren't playing stone-paper-scissors in the cockpit seconds before the crash but it's pretty unlikely. In the absence of evidence to the contrary it seems that the aircraft was serviceable and yet all this effort seems to be channelled towards trying to do the near-impossible, namely, prove a negative (that the FADEC might not have been working).

Just because there had been a few FADEC issues in the weeks that preceded the crash doesn't mean there were at the time. As it stands, even the layman can see that without concrete evidence, your arguments are pretty thin and that you're grasping at straws in the forlorn hope that someone will reverse previous decisions. Face facts, it's not going to happen. Not on the off chance that something might not have been working.

VSF,

To select some words from your last two posts:

"Nothing will be proven"

"It can't be proven"

"It's pretty unlikely"

"...might....."

"....seems...."

So you are content with the verdict based on "absolutely no doubt whatsoever " are you? If you are, why? The words above are hardly indicative of hard evidence are they?

VSF,

Unlike you I am not making any claims to know the truth - I like everyone else, including yourself despite your claim to know "the truth hurts", will never know what went wrong. I was merely pointing out a few factual areas which one might have expected a full BoI and review procedure to have covered - there are many others including such "minor" distractions as false engine fail warnings lasting up to 12 seconds, etc, etc which were part of the RTS at the time. You do not find Gross Negligence, the civilian equivalent being manslaughter, without knowing and having 100% confidence in the facts!

It seems to me that you are the one here who is grasping at straws - and at least I write my comments under my own name.

JB

I'll put forward my stance once more.

There are those who are happy to see aircrew accused of manslaughter without firm evidence. And those who are most definitely not.

VSF, maybe the chaps were playing stone, scissors, paper in the cockpit or, at very least, 'cuffing it'. But the big point is that the burden of proof does not lie with the crew, it lies with those who level the accusation of gross negligence. This is not about proving what did or did not happen, this is about the MOD proving their case against their own clear and unequivocal criteria.

The bottom line is that an apparently serviceable aircraft was flown into terrain. In the absence of any evidence of unserviceability to that particular aircraft at that time, what do you expect the AOCs to say? What choice did they have? Years of conjecture about things that might have occurred has achieved precious little because that's exactly what it is - conjecture. Draw a line under it. Please. For the sake of the other 27 families if nothing else.

Not positively determined.

vsf, can you be serious? I cannot imagine that anyone could be a troll on this thread, but what on earth possesses you to post here (for the first time?) such incendiary rubbish and at this time of year in particular? Now I realise that you are a serving helicopter pilot and I am not and never was, but your illogical contribution seems to owe little or nothing to your professional status so I will rush in and no doubt prove the proverb correct:
The discussion has concerned (well recently) not the serviceability but the airworthiness, and it would be an understatement to rephrase your post to "an apparently unairworthy aircraft", to say the least.
Well, personally if they had merely endorsed the original BoI finding I would be satisfied, but evidently they weren't.
Not to make the outrageous finding that they did, for a start.
Couldn't agree more, and yet Messrs W & D still felt able to produce their "guilty unless proved innocent" finding on just that basis.
You forgot to mention moving on and smelling coffee!
Why would they draw any comfort from their loved ones having died because of the alleged pilots' gross negligence? Why would it be more hurtful to be told that the cause was unknown, or even possibly that it was due to the aircraft's unairworthiness? I only raise these points because you have. Is it not better not to speak on other peoples behalf, when we have no idea of what they truly think, or do you anyway?
Finally may I add that I understand from your previous posts on other threads that you are presently an SAR pilot. If I have that wrong I apologise, but in any case may I say how much those who carry out such important and hazardous work are admired, especially when the rest of us enjoy the company of friends and family at this time of year. To all of you that serve and protect us, whether on duty now or hopefully also with your own loved ones, a very sincere thank you from an old BOF!

In the face of the extraordinary weight of evidence that the aircraft was not airworthy and MoD had not complied with its own airworthiness regs (a depressingly familiar statement these last few years), I’d say the only choice they had was to accept the conclusion that the cause could not be positively determined and add a rider that the staffs who condoned this systemic breach of regs should be brought to book. It’s not as if they are unknown. Or were the reviewing officers not told of the problems both the RAF and Boscombe (PE) were having with their respective fleets?

As for the supposed serviceability of the aircraft, that is pure speculation especially given the evidence of trend failures previously posted by JB. Were these trends investigated? Or was the 1991 savings measure to curtail such investigations, thus compromising airworthiness, a factor? I can only speak from personal experience, but recall we were instructed to cancel all such tasks on the Design Authorities. I know the reaction of “my” contractors – “You’re ###### mad. The airworthiness system will never recover”.

And then 2 years later Safety Cases became compulsory. But if you’ve allowed a 2-3 year gap in the audit trail, and will not fund retrospective corrective action, then any Safety Case for legacy equipment is by definition flawed as you are forced to make the sweeping, and completely unverifiable, statement that the aircraft/equipment is deemed safe at the effective date of the legislation.

How much of this was discussed at the various inquiries?

Chugalug2, you need to calm down mate.

If I crash and burn in '09 and my family start a 'aircraft not airworthy' campaign (that seems to be the done thing these days) I'll be back to haunt them until they stop.

Rather like proving anything you want with statistics, if you really wanted to, you could probably find enough evidence to declare every aircraft type on the inventory non-airworthy. But the guys and girls across all three services just get on with it; that's what they're paid to do. If one of the four guys wasn't happy with the aircraft on 2 Jun 94, they wouldn't have got airborne in the first place. That's an incontrovertible fact.

VSF,

I'm with you!

Please don't worry on my behalf, Vsf, I am very calm. What your supernatural intentions are for your family are of course your concern and presumably theirs. Your glib attitude to airworthiness as being "proving anything you want with statistics" ties in very neatly with the contempt held for it by the MOD. The only difference being of course that the MOD is the Authority for UK Military Airworthiness provision, and you are not. I am very well aware that it is the job of "the guys and girls across all three services just get on with it", I used to be such a guy. It is also the job of the MOD to ensure that the aircraft that they "just get on with it" in are airworthy. It did so in my day, but they have not it seems for the past twenty years or so. As to:
That is plain tosh and you know it. So the gross negligence was signing the F700 now was it? It seems to move further and further away from the accident site. In that we agree at least, but keep moving for we have further to go yet both in space and time. There was gross negligence all right but by others, and much further up the food chain.

Methinks the distinction between serviceability and airworthiness is lost on some?

Tosh?

No it isn't. It's a fundamental principle. If you're not happy you don't get airborne in the first place.

Regular contributors to these pages may find it hard to believe, but my thoughts on this entire issue are not uncommon throughout the aviation world. It just seems taboo to dare to suggest that the guys could've b0llocksed it up. Every time this campaign takes it a stage further and it receives yet more national press coverage, old wounds are re-opened for the other bereaved families. When's it going to end? The MoD aren't for changing, surely you must all realise that by now.

On whose authority do you speak?

I think VSF has worded rather well a critique of your strategy that probably many looking at this tragedy would agree with.
If you add that the a/c had got within 650 yards of the nearest shore at the point where they discarded waypoint A (and about 750 from that fog station, for those interested) and thus appeared to have been in control at least until that point and yet were still at high speed and seemed to make a deliberate turn to the right (into danger) onto a track which they held until 4 secs before impact at which point the a/c appeared to have responded correctly to the control positions found THEN you perhaps should consider approaches other than “airworthiness”.
While some would say it can happen to the best, I personally cannot believe the coincidence of them having a bad day, with their experience and local knowledge in this area, just when they have the particular VIPs on board.
My own analysis of the available data suggests that they were paying particular attention to navigation and that they had a purpose for approaching a known LZ closely.
Whether they were misled by a third party or simply misjudged their approach does not really matter if you are interested in just clearing their names – any such activity would reduce any mistake on their part to an error of judgment if that and together with that such an activity has not been disclosed surely throws out the original verdict of gross negligence.

BEagle:
Point taken Beegs, in which case let us refer to the ultimate authority, none other than Wiki itself (OK peeps, joke!) where they say:
Anyone disagree with that? Or with this; an aircraft may be serviceable yet unairworthy, but an unserviceable aircraft is always unairworthy?