RAF JUSTICE How the Royal Air Force blamed two dead pilots and covered up problems with the Chinook’s computer system FADEC Contents CHAPTER ONE Summary CHAPTER TWO Development of FADEC engine control system CHAPTER THREE Problems introducing FADEC into service CHAPTER FOUR FADEC enters service despite concerns CHAPTER FIVE THE CRASH CHAPTER SIX The crash investigations CHAPTER SEVEN The technical and political cover-up ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS RAF JUSTICE How the Royal Air Force blamed two dead pilots and covered up problems with the Chinook’s computer system FADEC Chapter One Summary of Chapter One Mull of Kintyre crash – a summary Dead pilots found guilty of gross negligence – test is “no doubt whatsoever.” Does no evidence of malfunction mean no malfunction? Chinook in USA overturns for no apparent reason Defence Minister defends decision to accuse dead pilots Chinook’s FADEC engine control computer system – problems Pilots who died on Mull of Kintyre worried about new FADEC system Crash investigators - unaware of key FADEC problems and design defect Crash investigators ask FADEC suppliers for help in determining whether their equipment was faulty An “E5” fault code in FADEC system of Mull of Kintyre Chinook – same fault code as on Chinook badly damaged in 1989 Investigators of Mull of Kintyre not told of crash aircraft’s full fault history Confidential memo a few weeks before crash reveals concern of Mod re FADEC. “Safety case” issues outstanding Chinook upgraded with new FADEC given clearance to fly on the basis of incorrect assumptions Investigators not told of damning analysis of FADEC software Defence Minister says FADEC problems before crash “relatively trivial.” Airworthiness assessors suspend trials on Chinook a day before Mull of Kintyre crash Operational pilots must fly Chinook A technical and political cover-up? Eyewitness accounts of inverted Chinook continue Professionalism of some pilots minutes and seconds before disaster Chinook – the crash statistics in the US and UK US Army admits it has blamed Chinook pilots for crashes which weren’t their fault US Army warns of Chinooks that go out of control for no apparent reason Why pilots tend to be blamed Chapter 1 1 - 1 RAF JUSTICE How the Royal Air Force blamed two dead pilots and covered up problems with the Chinook’s computer system FADEC Shortly after 7.30am on Friday June 2 1994, crew members of a Chinook helicopter, airframe registration number ZD576, had their last breakfast. They ate cereals; one had poached eggs as well, and another had a full fried breakfast. Then the crew collected their weapons, ready for the day’s duties, which were mostly around Northern Ireland. The aircraft’s crew flew some undemanding sorties around the province in the morning and arrived back at RAF Aldergrove, in good time to prepare for their next flight to Fort George, Inverness, Scotland. A few minutes after 5 o’clock that afternoon the two pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook joined two crew and 25 passengers on board ZD576. The passenger list was shredded on take-off. The 25 names included key military intelligence personnel, including army intelligence officers, agents of the MI5 counter-terrorist agency, and special branch police officers. Soon after 5.42pm, the Chinook was seen on a low-level flight path across the province. About 15 minutes after take-off, a yachtsman Mark Holbrook, saw it flying low and straight in good visibility. In front of the Chinook was the Mull of Kintyre, the top of it covered in cloud. To the left was open, unfettered sea and continued good low-level visibility. The pilots entered onto their navigation computer the pre-planned change of course: a left-turn to avoid the Mull. About 18 seconds before impact everything seemed normal. However the Chinook did not make its intended turn. Instead it flew a course – nobody knows for certain in these last few seconds if it was going straight, weaving or undulating – towards the bad weather on the top of the Mull. The station commander at RAF Odiham, the UK’s main Chinook base, would later tell an RAF Board of Inquiry that he did not believe that the crew would have elected to fly straight towards the bad weather on the Mull. At about 6pm several people on the Mull heard a dull thump followed by a loud whooshing sound. The air was filled with flames, and two cyclists on the hillside were enveloped in smoke. Chinook ZD576 had hit the hillside, bounced, broken up and landed again about 300m further on. All the occupants of the aircraft suffered major trauma on impact and died instantly. The RAF could have investigated the incident itself, but it chose to request help from the Department of Transport’s Air Accident Investigation Branch. The investigators concluded that there was no evidence of a technical malfunction capable of causing the crash. Later a RAF Board of Inquiry could not determine why the pilots had not made a left turn as planned and blamed them for flying into the Mull. Queen’s regulations state that: “only in cases where there is a absolutely no doubt whatsoever should deceased aircrew be found negligent.” Chapter 1 2 - 1 RAF JUSTICE How the Royal Air Force blamed two dead pilots and covered up problems with the Chinook’s computer system FADEC Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook were convicted posthumously of gross negligence. No professional airman can be branded with a more infamous mark of disgrace. Ministers of the last two governments, and the Ministry of Defence, have defended the decision to blame the pilots with vigour, on the basis of the report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch. However there may have been a world of difference between “no evidence of technical malfunction” and no malfunction. * * * * * Four years after the crash on the Mull of Kintyre, Bric Lewis finds himself piloting a Chinook which is flying particularly smoothly. Inside the cavernous cabin of a Chinook the ferment of noise is intrusive. With two large jet engines and six 60-foot rotor blades slapping the air at 225 revolutions per minute, you can cup your hand over someone’s ear, shout and they will not understand a word. But when Lewis exclaims involuntarily “Oh God” into the microphone of his headset, and the words are transmitted instantaneously to all those on board, the cabin goes almost ethereally quiet, as if life itself were held in suspension. The Chinook is falling out of the sky ... upside down ...yet the displays in the cockpit show no warning lights… no evidence of any technical malfunction… no evidence of technical malfunction. It was exactly the phrase that had been used four years earlier to condemn the two pilots, Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook after the crash on the Mull of Kintyre. Lewis and his crew knew then that, if they did not survive, they too stood to lose not only their lives but their reputations. It was a simple equation: accident plus no evidence of technical malfunction equals pilot error. Yet Lewis’s aircraft had become uncontrollable without warning, for no apparent reason. * * * * * At around the same time as the incident involving Bric Lewis’s Chinook in the USA, the United Kingdom Armed Forces Minister Dr John Reid was taking centre seat before the House of Commons Defence Committee. He could not have looked more grave. The television crew made their last-minute checks as the high ceilings of the committee room soaked up the light banter. Some MPs tried to engage Dr Reid in small-talk. He seemed to resist. Chapter 1 3 - 1 RAF JUSTICE How the Royal Air Force blamed two dead pilots and covered up problems with the Chinook’s computer system FADEC The Committee was convening to discuss one of the most notorious military aircraft crashes of the past 30 years: the loss of a Chinook ZD576 on the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland in June 1994. “This was a tragic, tragic loss of life,” said Bruce George, chairman of the Committee, “Their deaths were a severe blow in the fight against terrorism.” A clue to the importance of the meeting was the fact that Reid, by his own admission, had spent two days preparing for it. On the outcome of the hearing would rest Reid’s ministerial credibility, at least in the eyes of his department. Officials and some military officers wanted a minister who was able to defend one of the most controversial decisions the armed forces has made in recent years: the decision to find the dead pilots of ZD576 guilty of gross negligence. The verdicts against Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick were based on the fact that there was no evidence of any technical malfunction which could have caused them to crash into the Mull of Kintyre. So it was taken as read that, for no reason which has been ascertained, that Tapper and Cook decided to fly a serviceable aircraft into the ground. Some MPs including Martin O’Neill, Menzies Campbell, Robert Key, James Arbuthnot, and a peer Lord Chalfont, have expressed doubts about whether the lack of evidence of technical malfunction could be used as a basis for assuming there were no malfunctions. However the Ministry of Defence has for the past five years defended the decision to blame the pilots. Its officials and armed forces ministers have always resisted calls from MPs for a new investigation. In March 1998, MPs were given a chance to challenge some of the evidence, face to face with the minister and his advisers. Depending on the evidence presented, MPs would be either satisfied that the verdict was correct or could press for a re-opening of the inquiry.