'No blame' Over RAF Tornado Crash
 

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere in PPRuNe, but interesting conclusions on F3 Tornado that flew into a hillside near the Rest and Be Thankful beauty spot in Glen Kinglass on 2 July 2009.

See BBC report here:
BBC News - 'No blame' over RAF Tornado crash

interesting take on what could have been interpreted as a straightforward 'pilot error' report.

Perhaps RAF / MoD leaders (and the media) are realising that it isn't always beneficial to sully the reputations of well respected aviators, especially given the current public sympathies towards our forces people and previous fallout from such as the Chinook BoI report.

Good call if indeed this is the case and apologies in advance if I am wide of the mark..

From the local (to Leuchars) rag.

The Courier: Taking you to the heart of Tayside and Fife

All Service Inquiries are "no-blame". They are convened to find out what happened and make recommendations to prevent recurrence.

"All Service Inquiries are "no-blame". They are convened to find out what happened and make recommendations to prevent recurrence."

Is that except the 1994 Scotland Chinook crash?

If there is any blame, then it must be (once again) laid at the Brown's door, given lack of training and currency was cited as a contributory factor. And it looks like the clown is going to be re-elected.

Hamish, agreed. Am away from work at the moment, anyone know if the report itself is publicly available?

RIP Kenny & Nige.

The report is here

2 points seem to cry out from this report. Firstly the lack of currency and refresher training and secondly the mention of the regulations in JSP 550 regarding the consumption of Alcohol and flying.

The mention of alcohol is odd as the report states that alcohol was not a factor although there doesn't seem to be any mention of how much alcohol the authorisor had consumed. If Alcohol was not a factor then why recommend a change to the rules?

This ia Important
 

Please read the report in total. This was a CORPORATE failure! Valid thoughts are appreciated. This is an important issue.

I cannot let this thread pass without comment. It is inconceivable to me that our aircrew with so little experience should be so limited in allocation of training flying hours that they are expected to perform at low level in heavy operational fits safely. What have we allowed our politicians to persuade us to do?

As professionals we all should know what our maximums and minimums are. This pilot, and his experienced back seater, were hung out to dry by senior officers who should have fought harder to preserve the level of expenditure required to keep crews safe.

Ten hours per month is just enough to be dangerous in a fast jet and almost guarantees an accident if the jet is taken anywhere near its' limits in the role.

Apart from that I find it appalling that the complexity of regulations quoted in the report are so confusing. Why should the regulations be so complex? How do they expect the supervisors to cope with all the twaddle? The only part of supervision that really, really matters is to make sure that the crew authorised can safely complete the task. No regulation can substitute for that judgement but the level of complexity can sure make it difficult to sort out the wood from the trees.

I was taken aback at reading that a full ration on an FJ squadron was 10 hours.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who's been on the F3 force over the past decade, because as far as I recall the reduction to such a mickey mouse level of flying has happened only in the last few years.

Wasn't that long ago that the ration on an FJ squadron was just over 30 hours with work up to LF and subsequent currency in that discipline a carefully supervised, somewhat painstaking affair. (Of course 40 hour rations aren't that long ago either).

I'd like to rant against senior officers who completely fail to stand up for standards, but I don't feel equipped enough...did the F3 run down make this a 'highly unusual situation'?

Awful anyway.

When I left last year, a full 10 hour month was considered 'good' - sadly, it was only a matter of time....RIP Kenny and Nige

Vox,

A contributary factor in the reduction of aircrew flying hours isn't just budgetary. In my view it's also down to poor spares support, ridiculous levels of contractoisation in maintenance, and most importantly, the reduction in engineers on the squadrons coupled with experience drain. End result our aircrew aren't getting the requisite number of hours to tick all of their boxes.

There is no question of standards being cut, but a decent number of engineers plus adequate spares provision would help to put more jets on the line thereby minimising the impact of a crew-out.

It seems to me that the business end of the RAF is striving to achieve with one hand tied behind our backs. The strong hand. Don't get me started on the increasingly civilian and jobsworth attitudes being adopted by RAF personnel on the support side...

The lack of refresher on return from NFTC for people of Kenny's era is an interesting point. As far as I remember, the "official" word on the street at the time was that it would be pointless to refresh AD-bound students on the T1 at Valley, them having come from an aircraft with kit/hud etc and going to an aircraft with kit/hud etc.The real reason, afaik, was that 19 was packed to the rafters and they didn't have any spare capacity. I'm surprised the report implies that this policy wasn't sanctioned by the powers that be.

Whilst I don't think that the above had any real bearing on the accident, it is indicitive of a system with not enough money where corners are being cut. Let's all be sure we don't let that happen in our own areas of responsibility.

So, it seems that the pilot achieved on average 15 hrs per month for the past year, which included a trip to the FI and a portion of his CR workup-normally these are fairly 'high' hour months in my opinion. Does anybody have any gen on how many hours he flew in the preceding few months to the accident i.e Apr, May, Jun? Apologies if I missed it in the report.

BW

Hamish 123,
It is, perhaps, worth pointing out that the chump was not elected in the first place ..... :ok:

He was elected. He received an 18,000 majority and won 58% of the votes.

The circumstances leading to this tragic accident are not a one off. Such a systemic failure is endemic throughout the RAF. Perhaps someone could submit a FOI request on hours flown per pilot in the FJ world over the 09-10FY.

Me? Frontline FJ, over 3000hrs, 09-10FY - 110hrs.

It's the JPs I feel for.

Do I detect an oxymoron there? Perhaps the answer lies therein.