Don’t shoot the Pilots

Many years ago I was interviewed for the Roger Cook programme entitled “Don’t shoot the pilots”.  The premise was to look beyond human factors as the cause of air crashes to see if the human factors were in themselves shaped by culture (the gulf between cabin and cockpit crew in British Midland crash at Kegworth), training, cockpit ergonomics, communication between crew (PIA crash at Nepal) and of course the question of defective equipment. 

The Chinook Mull of Kintyre crash in 1994 is regularly in the news with calls for the pilots to be cleared.  Having acted for passengers in this crash, having attended the Fatal Accident Inquiry and having reminded myself of the Board of Inquiry I do have mixed feelings about his.  The MOD settled my cases three years after the crash on the basis of their liability for the actions of the pilots but they would have been equally liable if they had provided defective equipment.  So the issue is really one, as indeed it has been over the intervening years, for the families of the two pilots involved and also one for the MOD the tactical issue of how far they were prepared openly to criticise Boeing Vertol as a defence contractor.

I have not yet seen the causation issue worked through but “gross negligence” is certainly an unusual finding of a BOI and the latest documents deserve close scrutiny.