Nimrod – Airworthiness Sacrificed

October hasn’t been a good month for the MOD, with the official report into the Nimrod crash by Charles Haddon-Cave QC following on from the Harrogate Puma Inquest.  I was interested to see the concentration on this concept as we are just about to start a paper trail on airworthiness on the Puma aircraft.

I first came across Charles in the Manchester air crash 1985 where he acted for Pratt and Whitney and I subsequently instructed him to represent the families of the victims of the British Midland crash at Kegworth 1989 at the Inquest into that crash.

Whilst Charles’s commercial and international pedigree is beyond doubt he is also seen the human cost of systemic and cultural failures. I thought it was interesting that he likened the organisational causes to those of other disasters such as the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987.

The naming of the ten individuals whom he blamed for the major roles in connection with the lack of fire safety in the Nimrod is highly unusual in my experience. However corporate culture is always driven by individuals and it is right that those who make the major decisions are held accountable whether they be within the MOD, within its major defence contractors or its regulators and auditors. QinetiQ were there to monitor the aircraft as independent advisors and I am reminded that the Coroner in Harrogate thought that the audit by MOD Standards and Evaluation Unit shortly before the August 2007 incident was a missed opportunity. 

It is of course tragic that it takes loss of human life to look at these matters with rigour.