Jayteeto I have not blamed anyone nor am I trying to for the Mull crash. Just observing the few facts available. I certainly mean no disrespect to the crew, RAF or those close to the incident.

If you knew me you would mark well how I stand my corner when many others do not. My dogmatic refusal to take 19 pax into an air mass producing lightning being just one. This is LEARNED behaviour having seen what happens to aircraft that have been struck.

Jayteeto and Shytorque, I fully understand your emotional reaction to anyone even talking about the Mull. However even your own arguments paint a picture of events very close to what has happened to to this threads subject aircraft and crew. A crew under pressure making a forced error. That is MOST PROBABLY what lies at the heart of this matter.

Jayteeto, your incredible rude remark for me to *****Off is forgiven on the understanding this subject seems more personal to you than most.

Shytorque, being disciplined in war for failing to follows orders is far too complex to chuck in this mix.

Shytorque, I do want to cause you any more grief but can you tell us if there are any lessons we could or should take from the Mull accident?

DB

Believe me, I wanted to say it far far worse and it was designed to be rude. Thank you for your forgiveness, however it isn't required, thanks anyway.

You are absolutely entitled to your views and I actually respect that far more than you think. Over the last year, I have been rude to a number of people on pprune. It's weird, because it is often how they have presented their comments, not the actual comments themselves. The mull, Glasgow or Norfolk included a lot of posts where people stated things as factual; these were THEIR views not facts.
My issue was that you included the Chinook crash as CFIT in your list. Whilst 'controlled' could have been true, we don't actually know this as a fact. And there is my BIG personal problem............ without going over and over and over. No CVR, no proof, no public execution. Here's another little one to throw in. Dave Traill has been slated for not making a May day call, with a double engine failure, the number one radio drops out. So did he or didn't he?? We will never ever know without that CVR. No public execution??????? Not quite!!
Your views on other events may be 100% correct, but you can't prove it. That's all I mean to point out.

Any lessons to learn? Loads.

1. Don't shift the blame onto defenceless pilots without any evidence. You will eventually be found out, even after 10 years+ (ditto Hillsborough fans)

Jayteeto, I have not, to my knowledge, included the Mull on any CFIT list. I think you might be mistaking me for another poster.

Just so we are clear, we are all entitled to reasonable opinions provided they are supported by our experience and intelligence.

IT IS A reasonable opinion that the Mull was simply a CFIT! Just as it is reasonable to have an opinion that a spurious, 12 second indication of engine failure from the FADEC could have distracted the crew. However, in the absence of clear evidence we are left to our own opinions. My opinion is not based on blame or cause. Simply what can I draw from the event that may help me.

In this directive, planning a route in poor or likely deteriorating WX with a turning waypoint on high ground, rather than over open water, could, if circumstances conspire, cause a greater problem regardless of what else may be happening in the cockpit. In addition, maintaining very high Groundspeed towards rising terrain coasting in, in DVE, is a very poor practice best avoided.

I have read every report on the Mull and my opinions are unchanged as to the most probable cause. In that opinion I conclude that had some money been spent on a WX radar I very much doubt the Mull would have happened as a crystal clear paint of the coast would become a primary navigation aid.

As it is some people's continued pursuit of other causes do not readily support the requirement of manufacturers and operators (RAF) to equip aircraft such that the flight crew have the best information available to them when they need it.

None of the above involves blaming anyone or anything. It is simple a discussion based on most probable cause, and drawing from that, what lessons can or should be learned.

Any finding of crew negligence is hopelessly naive and serves no real purpose other than to close, forever, and accident report.

DB, you are quite right that the inclusion of the Mull in the list of apparent CFIT events was another poster, it was I and you shouldn't have been subjected to a slagging-off for it.

Unfortunately there is a human tendency among those close to events to sometimes lose perspective and the flat refusal of some to accept that the Mull accident itself was in all probability plain CFIT (albeit associated with a great deal of appalling mismanagement by whole sections of the RAF which has no evident direct connection with the accident) is likely a symptom of that.

A lack of conclusive proof does not in any way mitigate against the familiar expression "beyond reasonable doubt". We have no "proof" that the recent Battersea accident occurred under control, but equally we have no indications otherwise, yet I hear no dissent as to what in all probability happened in that case. The physical situations appears broadly similar (poor vis, bumped into something solid) yet once a head of steam is built up the perceptions can diverge in opposite directions.

Of course it is natural to try to protect the good name of your colleagues and the appalling decision to apply the phrase "gross professional misconduct" (iirc) to the Mull pilots rightly created a sh!tstorm. That I unhesitatingly agree was wrong, utterly wrong and went a long way to achieving temperatures seldom seen in accident investigations.

But we must beware of allowing emotions to overrule logic and due process in accident investigations when all the available information (despite no conclusive proof) point to an unpalatable conclusion. That isn't an intellectually rigorous process.

Blame. Bad word in this context, an one that the AAIB at least avoid tho the military may sometimes be less conscientious. We really shouldn't be thinking in terms of "blame" in these cases, despite what the meeja say and do. We should accept reasons though, and accept that we are all human and thus subject to making mistakes. A refusal to accept that our colleagues made a mistake, or most probably made a mistake when there is no indication otherwise is equally unhelpful. The tendency to hunt feverishly and endlessly for esoteric and ever more fanciful and unfeasible mechanical reasons while refusing to consider human inputs is a common feature of all the accidents we've mentioned here. There's no doubt that the human is increasingly becoming the weak link in the chain and the sooner we take this on board the quicker we may find a way to work around it.

Jayteeto you see it only from the perspective of the Flight Crew. Just for a moment consider the relatives of the Pax. They might reasonably ask why the AC was less than 1 mile from the Mull, doing 170 knots Groundspeed below 500 feet heading straight at the mountain shrouded in fog. At this point the new TANS Waypoint was reselected by the crew. The new waypoint track was never acquired.

After that the AC began a climb but failed to clear the mountain, the final flight path onsistant with late visual acquisition of the terrain.

Those are the facts that we know. Post 431 was an inaccurate summary.

Agaricus Bisporus - I hear you five by five and agree. Some people seem unable to emotionally detach. The job that day was to transport passengers. When you read some posters they seem to have forgotten that. I also believe fighting in the wrong direction runs the risk of missing the obvious. In the case of the Mull, if they had WX Radar and used it, I doubt very much whether the event would have occurred.

Q. Do large Military UK helicopters now have Radar?

Not really, I feel for the families too, they deserve facts, not opinions. I think your last post was correct. Problem is that if that was a reliable in service aircraft with a CVR, like this 139 in Norfolk, I would be with you 100%. It's been pretty simple to solve this one with the facts available. Sadly, we can criticize this crew..... unfortunately. Poor decision, poor flying skills, all backed by CVR FACTS!!
It's not emotion that drives me, really!

Jayteeto - once again I do not blame the crew! That is far too simplistic and utterly counterproductive. It's worth remembering the crew had already extended their shift and Captain Taplin had expressed strong reservations in regard to his currency and the urgency at which the HC-2 was rushed into service on his Squadron.

Sadly if the RAF had concentrated on fixing these and other serious shortcomings I suspect you would feel a whole lot better. However it does not change my view of the prime causal factor but my mind is open.

Bogey, ok, I actually don't think we are that far apart.
Hope that was autocorrect with the pilots name, Tapper.

I apologise to those interested in G-LABL but I'm not prepared to see garbage written about the Mull accident.

DOUBLE BOGEY
Utter fantasy. No such radar data exists!
Utter fantasy. No such evidence exists. Not that they ever descended. Not that they ever flew straight. Not that they ever flew level. You are prepared to make assumptions!

Frankly your recollection of the incident is very poor. You can't even remember the name of Flight Lieutenant Tapper for chr1ss@ke!:ugh:

There are so many holes in your statements of what you believe to be 'facts' (when they are no such thing!) that it is difficult to know where to begin!

You say you are motivated by some commitment to flight safety. Tell me, what do false assumptions based on opinions (NOT fact) do for flight safety?:rolleyes:

You say you don't want to blame anyone, yet that is precisely what you are seeking to do. Looking for scapegoats based on your poor understanding of the facts, and prejudice. You have prejudged these two pilots on the basis of no reliable evidence whatsoever! Shame on you.

The enlightened amongst us may at least console ourselves that your prejudiced and ignorant 'opinions' are diametrically opposed to the official verdict into this accident.

Your cheap shot about the relatives of the passengers was 'interesting'! Some of us have met them, and know exactly how they feel about this disgusting chapter. Have you? Do you?

I would like to ask the mods to prevent any further muck-raking over an incident not even slightly linked to the subject of this thread. Anyone who wishes to discuss the Mull should start another thread, and let's all re-hash the last 20 years!:mad:

Once again, apologies to those interested in the subject of this thread. DOUBLE BOGEY should be ashamed of introducing his jaundiced views here!

Tandemrotor
DOUBLE BOGEY didn't bring the Mull accident into this discussion. It was brought in, unfortunately IMHO, by Agaricus bisporus.

Agaricus bisporus I'm pleased to see you've toned down your views a little.
Even after the publication of the extremely thorough Mull of Kintyre Review, you continued to argue (in the Chinook thread in the Mil forum) that the pilots were grossly negligent: Even if the standard of proof required had been 'beyond reasonable doubt' (it was much higher than that, for very good reasons) I disagree with you - for the reasons given by the original BOI which were set out in detail and upheld by the Review. No comment. ;)


DBIt would be entirely reasonable for them to ask that question.
The answer is: No-one knows.

Nobody was in a position to give a precise description of the either the cloud situation or the visibility over the south end of the Mull of Kintyre as they appeared to the pilots as they approached from the south west.
Although the BOI were reasonably certain that the helicopter was flying fast at low level in proximity to the southern end of the Mull, in the absence of a CVR, a flight data recorder or the evidence of the crew or any other witness, they could not know how or why the crew got into that situation.
All the BOI were able to do was to put forward three possible scenarios as to the cause of the accident and, because they believed their ToR required them to choose one, they chose the one they considered to be the most probable.

Do you mean a hunch?

NB: When I refer to the BOI I mean the Board presided over by Wg Cdr (as he then was) Andy Pulford – before AOC No1 Group and AOC-in-C Strike Command came to different conclusions based upon their 'experience and intelligence'.
The Review considered their reasoning to be flawed and rejected their conclusions. It upheld the findings of Andy Pulford's Board.
(He became Chief of the Air Staff in July last year.)



FL

Flying Lawyer

I stand corrected regarding the introduction of the Mull into this discussion. Many thanks.

You refer to "Wing Commander (as he then was) Andy Pulford." For anyone who doesn't know he is now Air Chief Marshall Sir Andy Pulford, Chief of the Air Staff! A man of considerable integrity in the face of significant coercion to change his view, during this particular Board of Inquiry!

The board considered it incorrect to criticise the captain for any human errors based on the available evidence. It further considered that the co-pilot could not be criticised for failing to identify any errors.

Now PLEASE anyone wishing to discuss anything other than G-LABL, may I suggest you start a new thread?

Tandem rotor, if for one moment you would clear the paranoia that creates your prejudice you would have at least read my posts correctly. Just why do you think your views are the only ones that are valid! The only Unserviceability found by the investigation was a possible malfunction of the RADALT. I am sure you know that the RADALT simply records the height of the cliff at impact.

RADAR - read again. I know there was no WX radar that is my point.

BLAME - read again. My posts are clear.

Flying Lawyer - I may be mistaken but the lighthouse staff reported the lighthouse in fog??? The forecast mentioned possible DVS at the mainland coast.

Both - the final flight path, cyclic flare, turning left, 30 degrees nose up could be interpreted as a late acquisition of the surface but of course we will never know.

There are no definitive answers to this accident but we can reasonably speculate based on the facts as they are available. There is no "Shame" in doing this.

The Burden of Proof is there to protect the innocent from the slightest chance that there is another explanation. Its process does not conclude AT ALL, the most probable cause. TANDEMROTOR your anger towards me suggests you think because the Burden of Proof could not be met for negligence it automatically cancels any possibility of CFIT. This is simply not the case!! It just means there is insuuficient evidence to support negligence. In any other aviation operation this should open up the debate for a more progressive, productive discussion. However, the Mull, shrouded in implied controversy, seems to hold an immunity from this supported by near hysterical ranting posts like yours.

Again I apologise if the crew were your friends but this is aviation and if we do it long enough and hard enough we will lose friends. Sometimes the circumstances beggar belief and sometimes luck runs out. However getting emotional every 5 minutes because someone expresses an opinion, or worse ACCIDENTLY posts an inaccuracy, means you either have PTSD or you are manipulating posters emotionally to support your own views.

TANDEM - I have no doubt you will react with another emotional tiraid for something I have said in this post. But caution, I am fairly certain that apart from my summary of the overall flight path in post 431 I have recognised the emotion connected with this events and everything thereafter is information contained in the reports.

From the overall perspective of the very many CFITs into land and water the Mull accident is relatively unremarkable save for the appalling loss of life. Ultimately there may be a very different prime cause but as such we can learn nothing. However, if we consider the most probable cause as CFIT we can learn a great many lessons. In the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, we are free to hypothesise for this purpose just as you do TANDEM when accident threads you post on are not so close to home.

DOUBLE BOGEY

Come come. You don't make me angry at all. But after 17 years of fighting to successfully clear the names of the pilots, purely on the basis of evidential arguments, you might forgive some of us for being a little frustrated, that out in the shadows lurk opinionated ignoramuses such as yourself.
Yet another distortion of the facts. Of course the AAIB (you'll have heard of them?) we're not able to positively determine the pre-flight serviceability of this aircraft, (though there were indeed two OTHER potentially serious faults!). Just to remind you, here's why. There was no Cockpit Voice Recorder. No Flight Data Recorder. Tragically no survivors. No eyewitnesses to the accident. No radio calls. Only the aircraft wreckage. (70% of which was destroyed by the post impact fire) Yet you KNOW what caused the accident??:rolleyes:

Congratulations. You either have ESP, or you're a talented spiritual medium.

Oh, and by the by. When you said in an earlier post:
Did you MEAN to say:
A simple slip of the key board I'm sure? Or was it deliberate invention of 'fact' that you seem to so enjoy? You really don't know this case very well at all do you?

I challenge you to start another thread on the Mull rather than discuss it here. This is the wrong place. We can have a good debate, and re-hash the last twenty years elsewhere. I would welcome it.

Alternatively the mods may be able to split these discussions off?

TANDEMROTOR - firstly the Mull Tragedy is marred by the intimation that the HC-2 was not fit to be released to service, the crew currency may have been inadequate and the Commander forced to fly against his will. Some parallels that others have mentioned blight the Corporate flying world. So if you can keep your composure we have every right to discuss the Mull topic here.

You journalistic rhetoric places great value on facts. However you are wrong about the fire! 80% of the fuselage was damaged by fire but only 20% destroyed.

If you are that familiar with this accident then tell me what possible reasons, other than low cloud, would cause a crew to fly below 500 feet over the sea towards high ground at a Groundspeed of 170 KIAS. witnesses on the Mull reported visibility below 500m. The yachtsman saw the aircraft estimated at 200-400 feet, flying below the cloud base, heading straight for the Mull.
TANS data infers that the crew may have been distracted after the second waypoint selection. The final flight path strongly infers inadvertent IMC.

The exact reasons why the crew flew towards the Mull below the Safety Altitude are unknown but on the few facts available described above the most probable cause, in my opinion no more and no less, is inadvertent IMC leading to CFIT.

Crucially, and this is the point TANDEM you seem incapable of processing, this conclusion does not necessarily mean that the crew were to blame. Equally it does not necessarily mean they were not to blame! There is simply not enough evidence in this regard, to know for certain and thus the required legal Proof cannot be met.

Now instead of being incredibly rude and calling me an "Ignoramus" just what do you have to offer that counters any of the above (which to the best of my recall is accurate in regards to the accident review).

Or alternatively keep bleating for us to move the topic to another thread.

I may well be an "Ignoramus" but like I said at the start, there are none so blind as those that cannot see.

I have drawn my own conclusions based on the evidence in the reports. If you want to modify my opinion you need to explain what is wrong in the reports and my mind is open.

DB

Firstly, thanks to the mods for splitting these discussions off from the previous thread. Much appreciated.

DOUBLE BOGEY, in your post #34 you said:
Would you be so kind as to explain precisely what you meant by that?

Thank you.

I lost one good friend and a working acquaintance on the Mull Chinook. We will never know what happened and conjecture just raises the blood pressure.

I'm left wondering how many scores of military accident reports I have read where a recommendation has been to fit CVR/FDR. The real travesty is that there are so many aircraft still flying which could now be easily and cheaply fitted with such devices.

Tandem, clearly you have nothing to offer beyond the official reports. My meaning is simple. Once clear of the Irish coast the aircraft descended to below 1000 feet. That was recorded on Radar.

Why, seeing as you were clearly not in the aircraft, did you feel the need to spend 17 years trying to prove the crew were not to blame. How do you know? Enlighten me so I can begin to understand the seemingly irrational response to this accident! What do you know that is not in the report?

Cows Getting Bigger. I am sorry about your friends truly. I am sure most of us on Pprune have experienced something similar.

None of us tried to prove anything, that was the whole argument, NOTHING could be proved. You really are making a knob of yourself. It wasn't emotion, that was the mistake many people made about the campaign. Many who argued actually believed in private that CFIT was a credible cause, but without proof you can't hang a good man.
Keep digging, Australia is near

Umpteen Million Pounds a Chinook costs and the MOD cannot fit a CVR?

Penny wise and Pound foolish I would say.

But then again, how many Military aircraft have CVR's particularly in the Helicopter Fleets of every Nation?

Reading the Accident Report and related documents suggests that anyone that tries to lay blame on the Crew alone is in denial of reality.

That it was attempted at all is a gross miscarriage of justice.

An old fashioned Radar in the nose of the aircraft would not cost all that much one would think. It is not as though the Chinook doesn't fly in IMC conditions ever.

The American Army for way too many decades considered Helicopters to be aerial Trucks of various sizes. How many Lives has that cost over the Years?

DOUBLE BOGEY you said:
Would you please be so kind as to tell me where I can find the evidence that anything at all "was recorded on radar"? It's just that I can't ever recall seeing any such thing.

Many thanks TR.

Bob, one of the wisest statements on this case. It would have made umpteen enquiries a lot simpler

DOUBLE BOGEY You are mistaken.
Further, the Pulford Board concluded that nobody was in a position to give a precise description of the cloud situation over the south end of the Mull at the time of the accident, and they did not attempt to do so.
Estimates of aircraft heights by non-aviators are notoriously unreliable. (Estimates by aviators are also often inaccurate but, generally, not as far out as those of non-aviators.)
Post-accident examination of the SuperTANS revealed that it was at 468 feet above sea level +/- 50' a few seconds after the waypoint change/about 15-18 seconds prior to impact.
The aircraft struck a rocky outcrop on the side of Beinn na Lice, approximately 0.28 nm east of the lighthouse, at 810 feet amsl.

There was a forecast 30% risk of conditions below VFR limits around the Mull of Kintyre.
The captain planned the sortie as a VFR flight at low level on the way out and at medium level on the return to RAF Aldergrove. The decision to fly a low level VFR sortie was consistent with the weather forecast provided by the Belfast International Airport Met Office for the area around RAF Machrihanish (some 17 km to the north of the lighthouse) and operationally acceptable but required contingency options to avoid any bad weather.

The helicopter continued almost 200m from the initial impact point before impacting the ground while inverted. It manoeuvred violently while being struck by the rotor blades, breaking into two with substantial parts breaking off during the crash. Fuel tanks on both sides were ruptured at initial impact resulting in extensive ground fire which severely damaged much of the wreckage.
Tony Cable (Senior Inspector of Air Accidents - Engineering) with 18 years experience as a crash investigator told the House of Lords Select Committee and the Review that: “... throughout this investigation the evidence was remarkably thin, from my point of view, I must say. We spent a great deal of time trying to find evidence.”
He could not dismiss the possibility that a malfunction had occurred but had left no evidence in the wreckage.
NB: Absence of evidence is very different from evidence of absence.

You ask the campaigners: jayteeto has already explained this to you.
It's all in the report of the independent Review. You would have seen it for yourself if you'd read it with an open mind.

It took a very long time but the campaigners were eventually vindicated by the independent Review.
The campaign might not have been necessary if the senior Reviewing Officers had accepted the findings of the Board presided over by Andy Pulford.

Why do you regard it as an 'irrational response" to try to achieve justice for deceased colleagues? :confused:

Go down slow down
 

More in search of others opinions rather than any claimed knowledge, I also hope I haven't missed the answer in a previous post too, but something that's always seemed in favour of a last minute issue causing the aircraft to become inadvertent IMC is that SH phrase "go down slow down". It's not in any crews mentality to press on IMC below safety altitude when other options are available. We're an inadvertent IMC event handled where an icing clearance and IFR option were available a pull up in cloud to Safety altitude and a turn to a safe heading of course would be logical and unquestioned. That said with neither and if the aircraft was seen VFR, VMC below cloud by the yatch, wether it was 4, 5 or 600ft above the sea a descent to stay VMC would be automatic for crews used to flying a lot lower level than where they were, like wise a slow down for the prevailing visibility also. Unless of course from contentedly cruising VMC below something occurred and put them IMC at minimal if any notice while dealing with an internal issue at the same time perhaps.... NR runaway up? FADEC issues as reported by the Odiham TP?:confused:

ALL - I cannot get past this all encompassing suggestion that any intimation of inadvertent IMC leading to CFIT was the prime causal factor in this accident AUTOMATICALLY MEANS the crew were to blame.

FL - witnesses on the Mull reported low cloud and poor visibility. The Yachtsman saw the helicopter flying below the cloud! Are you really suggesting the accident happened in VMC!

Bob - I agree 100% re the WX radar BECAUSE I believe it was an IMC CFIT.

Malfunctions - the aircraft had flown a lot that day. No evidence of malfunction was found in wreckage that was assessable. No MAYDAY call. No further HC-2 catastrophic accidents. No significant deviation of flight path ( the TANS evidence had it climbing at 1000 fpm at 150 knots, CONSISTANT with a cruise climb, until the very last moment before impact. Cyclic flare, sharp turn, pancake impact damaging rear fuselage and sponsons, leading to blade strikes and disintegration.

I agree with the review findings. There is insufficient evidence to meet the legal burden of proof for negligence or blame.

I come back to Bobs point and original issue. In most legal battles the first casualty is often the truth. In this case the truth is that military aircraft, certainly at that time, were very poorly equipped for IMC flight. I remember well flying IMC, in a Gazelle, unstabilsed, with only Doppler mini-tans, with VIPs in the back (well, Generals etc).

In the Mull Tragedy, WX Radar and data NAV would have made a huge difference BUT only if you accept the most probable cause was IMC CFIT.

It is therefore a crass disservice to military crew that the review, investigation and the continued crys solely to exonerate the crew, combined, have singularly failed to call for improvements in navigation and avionics equipment fits in military aircraft. I recently had a look at a Merlin. Shocked at the lack of avionics.

In the absence of clear evidence we should consider the principles of Occums razor! The most simplistic explanation is the most probable. Given the evidence available in the report the investigation concluded inadvertent IMC and CFIT. The review does does specifically disagree with this conclusion. it simply identifies that there is no evidence to suggest that the crew were negligent in their duties at the time.

Furthermore the crew were at the end of a long days duty and extending. The report indicates they may not have had current training on the HC-2 and that the Captain had asked to delay the HC -2 into service. Notwithstanding this they accepted the task. This reads like very poor management and culture conspiring to place the crew in unfavourable conditions from the outset.

Like I have consistently stated. I do not blame the crew. They were hand picked special forces pilots of extremely high calibre not prone to recklessness or mistakes. This does not mean that given the right (or wrong) circumstances such crews will not make an unforced error. Tiredness, time pressure, poor training leading to unfamiliarity and an aircraft prone to spurious engine indications in a culture of "get on with it" might just be enough to force an error.

With the exception of deliberate "wazzing" blaming a crew for an accident will always mask the underlying causes and deficiencies in the system.

If the HC-2 was cleared IMC and had its proper (eventual) icing clearance, the safest way to Inverness that day would be IFR at or above safety altitude. This is also missed by the investigation and the review.

Jayteeto - "Privatley many of us who fought thought it was a CFIT". If this is the case what did you believe at the time caused the CFIT.

The single most important fact reiterated by Lord Philip was that the Controller Aircraft Release (signed by Sir Donald Spiers) was mandated upon Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (AVM Anthony Bagnall).


The CAR stated the aircraft (Chinook HC Mk2) is NOT airworthy and CANNOT be released to service. The primary reasons are (a) FADEC is not permitted in the aircraft (b) the entire Comms and Nav systems are NOT to be relied upon in any way whatsoever. The Comms bit was actually largely irrelevant, because the Intercom was NOT cleared to be fitted to the aircraft. I'm not a pilot, but I suspect this would prevent the aircraft taking off.



Despite this, and the legal obligation he was under, ACAS withheld this rather "remarkable" information from the rest of the RAF and signed to say the aircraft was compliant in every respect. He also withheld, from the BoI, AAIB, Police and all subsequent inquiries that he was sitting on a 1992 report detailing precisely the systemic failings reiterated by Haddon-Cave some 17 years later.





"Unremarkable" is not a word I'd associate with these actions. Criminal, yes. Please don't fall into the MoD trap of only looking at the final act.



Added:

Sorry, I noticed you mention "Icing Clearance" again. What Icing Clearance? A properly amended RTS had no Icing Section in it on 2nd June 1994!! This was an administrative error, but nevertheless it did occur.

Tecumseh - "FADEC is not permitted in the aircraft" ???

What did this statement in the CAR mean?

Flying Lawyer:

Yachtsman estimated the AC height at between 200-400 feet

SUPER- TANS data has AC at 468+ or - 50 feet.

You state non aviators AC Height estimates are notoriously inaccurate!

Is this just "Lawyers" accuracy we are discussing?

Double Bogey


The necessary testing and clearance of the Safety Critical Software had hardly begun before it was halted. The reasons are well documented. Essentially, Boscombe were following mandated regulations; parts of the MoD were telling them to ignore them.

Therefore, there was no Certificate of Design for FADEC, therefore it was not permitted to be fitted in a Service aircraft. Under MoD(PE) rules, it was only permitted in the PE Fleet aircraft for trials and testing. As advised to both MoD(PE) and RAF, that trials aircraft was not a recognisable Chinook HC Mk2, and Boscombe awaited delivery of one. Therefore, valid testing and trials in general could not be conducted as the results would be of no relevance to the Mk2 CAR recommendations. Hence, Boscombe declined, correctly, to recommend CAR be granted. The aircraft had Switch On Only clerance, which means (as stated above) you are not permitted to rely upon it in any way whatsoever. All testing and trials activity had ceased on the day of the crash.

You must follow the lies. MoD consistently claimed the FADEC software was not Safety Critical. This was debunked once and for all during the Philip Review, when the policy document showing it WAS Safety Critical was produced in evidence. It also helped that the author of the relevant Defence Standards of the day, an RAF officer at Boscombe, was tracked down and his original copies of these "missing" Standards produced. (Hitherto, MoD had declined to acknowledge their existence and, in fact, still do).

Upon production of this evidence, MoD's 17 year campaign against the pilots stopped overnight and they put up no further argument. It must have come as a bit of a shock that their challenge for "new" evidence to be produced was met head-on.


Hope this helps.

Tecumseh - really interesting read your last post and a bit shocking!
Was their any evidence of potential serious malfunctions arising from that original FADEC software?

Dahdaaaahhhhhhhh!!! G'day mate, welcome to Oz!

What do I think caused it????

I DON'T KNOW, therefore innocent until proved guilty.

My hunch? Before the flight, they were worried about two things (a fact I discussed with them). No IF clearance and FADEC run-up/down. They even spent 10 mins running through the drills. What could cause an aircraft to climb into cloud, go balls out 165kts and prevent slowing down? A FADEC run-up at the worst moment. A lack of IF/ICING clearances would discourage a climb to SA.

PS. They did the morning tasking in a Mk 1 Chinook that was not available for this task.

I am currently weighing up the pros and cons of my next insult, I think in this case it may be worth a ban from the site......

But was SuperTANS displaying information after waypoint acceptance? That question has never been addressed (except in the evidence to Lord Philip) and both Racal and MoD have studiously avoided the issue. If I switch my PC monitor off now the system is no use to me, but the computational part of it still works. The existence of data on my hard drive does not mean I have seen it.

According to the AAIB report SuperTANS was switched off before impact. Photographs clearly show the switch off. Switching off was a recognised means of clearing EMC problems. SuperTANS had a battery backup which meant (I believe) it continued processing in the background, just like my PC would. The dangers of letting Racal write their own report. It is very selective. And for many years key parts of it were withheld. Yet, Trimble were not permitted to write the report on their GPS, which had multiple faults including no Time of Day output; something perhaps significant in a crash where the timeline is of such import.

May I strongly suggest reading the evidence to Lord Philip. It really does make you think more deeply about the underlying failures and why MoD would seek to blame the pilots.

DOUBLE BOGEY

If you read what I said more carefully and with an open mind you will see that I did not suggest that.

Based upon the S-T data, the yachtsman's upper estimate was not far out. You will, I hope, have noticed that I posted all the available evidence relating to height.

Feel free to make quips about lawyers if you wish.


FL

Jayteeto - why are you so angry again - what you have written in your last post is exactly what I have been saying from the outset. You need to read your own handle and "Calm down kidda"

Now you are telling me they used two variants on the same day, one of which (the accident aircraft) they felt ill prepared to operate. It just gets worse. Maybe you need to take a time out before you dig a hole to Australia!

In short, yes. However, one could argue the main problem was lack of understanding of how FADEC was meant to work. Maturity of understanding leads to a safer system. Maturity is key to this whole issue. Under the mandated rules governing System Maturity, there was no authority to enter Production. It could be argued there was none to enter Full Development either, although I'd argue that would be too strict an interpretation.

In 1993 MoD sent a team to Boeing to learn as much as they could about FADEC, so they could "train the trainers". A misunderstanding meant they were greeted by Boeing staff who thought MoD were there to teach THEM!! Again, a former RAF officer who led this team came forward during the Philip Review. This tells you much about why FADEC was such a mess. Boeing had little to do with it due to the contracting arrangement. They were expected to simply sit back and wait for MoD to deliver it. Compounded by the LRU hosting the Safety Critical Software (DECU) being managed by a mechanical committee, not the correct electronic committee, which would never, in a million years, have permitted such a nonsense. Again, the evidence to Lord Philip explains this in detail, with a quote from the deputy chair of that committee.

Flying Lawyer - Sorry Sir but you do not fool me! Using carefully crafted script to illustrate a point you wish to make will not hoodwink me.

So we are now a little clearer, the AC was almost certainly low level 468 feet when the yachtsman saw it. They climbed shortly thereafter and hit the hill around 800 feet. People in the vicinity of the lighthouse reported low visibility on the Mull.

Feel free to postulate and drawn reference to minor inaccuracies BUT the AVAILABLE evidence strongly suggests inadvertent IMC leading to CFIT.

Before you try to draw me again bear in mind I personally have a substantial amount of experience, in the air, in a helicopter, in similar conditions. I know what it looks, smells and feels like. Not the rarified atmosphere of the barrack room lawyer......or other kind. I know well the pressure, thought processes and strict priority of action required to survive in such situations especially when dealing with a malfunction.

It is pricesly because of this experience that I recognise that a simple decision, made in a heartbeat, amidst a myriad of complex problems can determine the success, or otherwise of the outcome. Often luck joins in as well. For these reasons, more than anything else, trying to blame a flight crew for an accident is wrong, inappropriate, distracting and counterproductive. This has been my stance from the beginning.

I doubt I can make myself any clearer and unless there are any objections I will now bow out and leave this subject.

DB

Whilst I don't wish to intimate blame (and have always been appalled at the big-wigs / political decision to slate the crew without real evidence), I've always been puzzled at the crew decision to plan a track over high granite in marginal weather, in any aircraft, let alone one in which the crew had less than full confidence.

For those who've flown around the area (many) a small diversion around the MoK would have made little difference to their overall ETA & logic says a low-level visual route between MoK & Arran, or going up the West side & hopping over the Machrihanish saddle, would have reduced workload in the event of malfunction or systems doubt? It would also have had significantly less risk than a, potentially system-affected, climb to get over the biggest bit of cumulo-granite on the immediate planned track? I still fail to believe that, with the fair (witnessed/TANS) certainty that they were VCF over the water, that any systems/FADEC failure would have interrupted the ability to change heading at 400/500'?

I'm afraid I'm with Ag-B & D-B that the likelihood of CFIT is greatest, but there would appear to have been so many other pressure factors that personal, corporate or political ar*e-saving may not have been high enough up the priority list, very sadly.

D-B - I'd strongly advise not attacking FL or his views & certainly not his balanced, but legal, approach to his posts. He's FL because he's just that - there's nothing "barrack-room" about his views on law or aviation, and most of us (certainly those who know what he's done for aviation in the courts) welcome his sagacity on this forum.

With respect, I think people need to read the evidence about Uncommanded Flying Control Movements. A Special Flying Instruction was uncovered during the Philip Review notifying aircrew of serious and sudden changes in direction, especially after a long straight run. (Think the course alteration after Waypoint acceptance).

This was precisely what the Odiham test pilot, Sqn Ldr Burke, had experienced a number of times and reported; but MoD called him a liar. He gave evidence to Lord Philip that this SFI had not been promulgated to aircrew, and he knew nothing of it when he visited Aldergrove shortly AFTER the crash to investigate yet another occurrence. None of this was made available to the BoI. The SFI was dated AFTER the pilots underwent their "conversion" course; after which they primarily flew the Mk1.

The mark 1 was u/s, read the report. Read the report, read the report.

I don't need to dig, I enjoy watching other imbeciles doing that