Ainsworth’s Brownies over ’safe’ Nimrod
RAF Nimrod
The Times is reporting that there may be “doubts” over statements made by Defence Minister “Slow Bob” Ainsworth.
“Slow Bob” Ainsworth the lickspittle Defence Minister appointed by Britain’s worst ever Prime Minister was obviously brought up on the in-bred belief learned at the tit that if you lie long enough, often enough and against all the facts then the lie is the truth. This is the ubiquitous “brownie”, the stunning lie that you just can’t believe they are telling, from the people who are supposed to running, or is that ruining, our country. It is this basis of deceit that has brought this country literally to its knees and is now causing the deaths of many of our Armed Forces as they struggle with both lack of and unsuitable equipment.
Let’s step back to just over a year ago when the inquest into the crash of Nimrod XV230 over Afghanistan with the loss of 14 members of the Armed Forces took place . At the inquest it was revealed that the Nimrod was not airworthy when it went on active operations against the Taliban.
The Coroner at the inquest Andrew Walker called for the RAF Nimrod fleet to be grounded as he recorded narrative verdicts at the inquest into their deaths.
At that time the then Armed forces minister Bob Ainsworth insisted the Nimrod remained safe and that all the issues raised by the crash were being dealt with.
Not quite what one of the relatives of the dead had to say, Andy Knight, the brother of Sgt Ben Knight, one of those killed, said the statement by Mr Ainsworth was a “disgrace”.
“This plane is not airworthy, it has not been for 40 years. It is not airworthy today by the MoD’s [Ministry of Defence] own regulations and standards and it should not be flying.And it is flying over every one of our constituencies, it is flying over Afghanistan. I don’t care whether the troops on the ground require it, there’s 14 men in that plane flying around. Their lives are just as important as the operational need by troops on the ground – and it should not be flying.”
In this he was just saying exactly what the Coroner had stated at the Inquest. Our local paper the Press and Journal had the following to say after the verdict of the Coroner into the crash of the RAF Nimrod XV230 yesterday.
The Government’s record of looking after its own forces in Afghanistan and Iraq has been called into question repeatedly, but the deaths of 14 Nimrod crew was its darkest moment. Ministers last night refused to bow to pressure from bereaved families and the coroner who called for the entire Nimrod fleet of aircraft to be grounded.
The Government claimed that modifications to operational procedures now made the aircraft safe to fly. This might well carry a hollow ring to it given the Ministry of Defence’s previous record of looking after Nimrods, which was condemned by both the inquest and an RAF board of inquiry. Had new corporate manslaughter laws been retrospective in nature the Government could easily be facing extremely damaging and expensive legal action.
Critics will suspect that the Government is taking a huge gamble that its new procedures will work.
If there is any further loss of life by Nimrod crews for similar reasons, there will be a clamour for manslaughter charges to be brought.
Two weeks later the BBC reported that the families of the dead from the crash of Nimrod XV230 wanted to have safety talks with the Armed Forces minister. They were upset about how the minister was able to make immediate comment about the airworthiness of the Nimrod without reading the coroners report. Robert Dicketts, father of L/Cpl Oliver Dicketts, 27 – who was killed in the explosion – has written to Mr Ainsworth on behalf of all the families of those killed as follows
First of all we were all very upset that you felt able to make an immediate comment about the airworthiness of the Nimrod fleet before you even had the chance to read the coroner’s verdict. Bearing in mind the seriousness of the matter we would have thought that you should have first read it, and then called in your experts to advise you before making any comments.It is clear to us that your experts have completely different information to that which we heard in the coroner’s court. In view of this we would ask that we have a meeting to both review your experts’ evidence and that which we heard.
He also added that the minister would be aware several experts had
Stated quite clearly the fleet was still not airworthy and continued that in cases where the experts thought the plane was still airworthy they had, in some cases, had their evidence “discredited“.Speaking after the inquest coroner Andrew Walker said the fleet had “never been airworthy” as he recorded narrative verdicts.
Des Browne reacted by saying changes made to the Nimrod meant it was now safe for crews.
Two weeks later on the 27th June BBC Scotland reported that the families of the Nimrod victims were taking legal action Demands for legal action have been led by Graham Knight, whose son Ben was among those killed when the aircraft crashed in Afghanistan two years ago.
“Fourteen men died on that plane and apart from apologies nothing has really been done about it and although the planes have been deemed un-airworthy, they’re still flying. Had it been a bus company and it had been an un-roadworthy bus, legal action would have been taken against the bus company. I feel that something needs to be done as nobody has been brought to task.”
Then in April of 2009 I blogged on a report in the Independent that told us that Bob Ainsworth lied about a report on the Nimrod. Bereaved relatives were not told of 26 faults which inspection found could threaten aircraft’s safety
A report into the safety of Britain’s ageing fleet of Nimrod spy planes, which a defence minister claimed did not reveal “any significant airworthiness issues”, exposed almost 1,500 faults – 26 of which threatened the aircraft’s safety.
Eight of the faults posed risks of fire and explosion, the cause of the catastrophic loss in September 2006 of a Nimrod in Afghanistan. Fourteen servicemen died after leaking fuel was ignited by a hot air pipe, causing the aircraft to explode…
… It found that the initial general condition survey – a visual inspection of the plane – revealed 1,495 “observations”, 26 of which had “potential airworthiness implications”.
These included chafed wiring, damage to an oil pipe and chafed fuel pipes, all of which could have led to a “fire and explosion”. A further nine observations were categorised as “serious engineering issues requiring immediate action”.
The MoD ordered the rapid rectification of all the problems on the ageing Nimrod fleet. However, 12 of the 18-strong fleet remain grounded while aircrews fix the problem that resulted in the explosion in Afghanistan.
So whilst these repairs were going on Bob Ainsworth the Defence Minister wrote to families of those servicemen killed, stating that the
“report by QinetiQ on the Nimrod has been received and it does not identify any significant airworthiness issues”.
This was an utter and complete fabrication. The letter from Mr Ainsworth also made no mention of the fact that the MoD had ordered a thorough strip-down of the Nimrod to see whether there were any deeper, less visible problems.
RAF Nimrod
And now we have this report in the Times which says
Doubt cast on defence secretary’s accuracy in telling families of men killed in RAF spy plane, QinetiQ ‘passed’ aircraft
and continues
Ainsworth repeatedly said defence consultants QinetiQ agreed the aircraft was safe to fly, despite the company warning that “no statement can, or has been made” to this effect.
Now this is not “doubt” being cast this is an utter fabrication in the brownie mold, and one which lickspittle Ainsworth keeps repeating despite the facts being laid before him.
As the Times reveals QinetiQ were asked to look at the hot air system and told the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in a draft report on June 20, 2008, that it was impossible to say for sure this was the case.
The report, obtained under Freedom of Information rules, explicitly states that
“no statement can, or has been made as to whether the hot air system risks identified in this report have been reduced to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)”.
The term ALARP is critical to aircraft safety. When problems with an aircraft leave it only “tolerably safe”, the risk must be reduced to “as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)” or it is not safe to fly.But 10 days after the draft report was issued, Ainsworth, who was promoted in the Cabinet reshuffle earlier this month, told parliament QinetiQ backed his claims the aircraft was ALARP.
He said:
“It is the view of all those involved in the equipment safety and environmental working group, which includes QinetiQ… that the Nimrod is tolerably safe and ALARP, and is therefore safe to fly. No member of the group demurs from that view.”
Ainsworth repeated the claim two weeks later in letters to Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, and backbench Conservative MPs Ian Liddell-Grainger and Sir Nicholas Winterton.
On August 19 last year, during a meeting with families of the dead men at their base at RAF Kinloss, Morayshire, Ainsworth again insisted the aircraft was safe.
The Times then says QinetiQ issued its final report in February this year, again stating that it was impossible to say the risk to the aircraft’s hot air system was ALARP, but it said “targeted mitigation” to remove the risks it had identified might allow a “qualitative risk assessment and ALARP judgement to be made”.
After receiving the final report, the MoD took a number of Nimrods out of service to make changes to the hot air system. But they failed to carry out all the QinetiQ recommendations, according to Jimmy Jones, a former Nimrod trials engineering officer.
“The QinetiQ report makes clear that there are still a number of areas where hot air pipes, with ambiguous maximum temperatures, are too close to fuel lines, QinetiQ said they need a permanent heat sensor with real time display of the temperatures of the cross-feed duct, as there is no realistic data available regarding its temperature in flight. Until that is fitted, the aircraft should not fly.”
The MOD despite the statement that the aircraft should not fly stated:
“At no point has the minister misled the House on this issue. The measures we have taken have reduced the risk of fire and explosion on the Nimrod aircraft to ALARP. Consequently, the Nimrod fleet remains airworthy and safe to fly.”
An independent inquiry into the Nimrod by Charles Haddon-Cave QC is due to report in October. However, he has already warned the MoD and “some very senior officers” they face criticism in his report.
So there we are, a catalogue of Brownies by “Slow Bob” over the past year, on the safety of the Nimrod and this by the man who is the supposed Defence Minister, the man responsible for the safety of our Armed Forces. What can you say when the lie is repeated until it seems like the truth, now who else is doing this right now?
One final point is to note that despite all this we are only planning to procure 9 replacements over the next 3 years for the current Nimrods, but don’t worry they will be replaced by more Nimrod’s, the Nimrod MRA4. This version has had a bit of a late start in life, since it was due in-service in 2003. None have yet been delivered and it likely to be 2010 (or later) before the RAF get any. The delays are mainly due to the following, The initial in-service date for the MRA4 was scheduled for April 2003, however, development took longer than anticipated and, as of 2009, the aircraft have not yet entered service. The contract was initially for the supply of 21 rebuilt Nimrods. Initially Flight Refuelling Limited were contracted to undertake the conversions to MRA 4 standard, but early in the contract BAE discovered that none of the Nimrod airframes supplied by the RAF for refurbishing were to a common standard. This considerably complicated the refurbishment process and the task of converting the existing airframes was transferred to BAE Systems Woodford. Due to technical problems the project was halted, after a design fault was discovered with the new wings. This allowed BAE Systems to design a modification to the wing design before the programme could be restarted.
How can anyone state that the Nimrod is safe when it is discovered that none of the airframes of the older MR2 type were built to a common standard, basically no-one has a clue on the safety of these aircraft and they are operating on “Wing and a Prayer”
Ainsworth’s assurance over ’safe’ Nimrod – Times Online.
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