Nimrod XV230 - Our Tightwad Attitude is Killing Our Troops

The long record of cost-cutting on the Nimrod spy plane and the way in which it led to the deaths of 14 British servicemen when their aircraft exploded over Afghanistan a year ago today is as disturbing in its own way as any story I have worked on. Amid the repeated MoD insistence that nothing is wrong, one has to constantly remind oneself that 14 people died here. Both the MoD and the RAF claim that the aircraft is safe. Large numbers of crew have resigned, including the all-important training pilots, while others cling to a belief repeated like a mantra by the RAF that it would not have allowed the aircraft to fly if it were not safe.

Yet with every new document that emerges comes something that seems unbelievable even to seasoned engineers yet alone the layman. We have already heard of floods of fuel leaking out of pipes and literally running through the fuselage before venting out from the rear of the aircraft as if it were emptying its tanks in preparation to land.

We have heard how aging pipework in the aircraft’s bomb bay burst open spraying air superheated to temperatures higher than the fuel’s ignition point onto a fuel tank at the root of the wing; and how the station commander warned that “the unexpected failure” was an ever present problem in an aircraft that is now 12 years past its out-of-service date. His warning came just a year before Nimrod XV230 exploded over Afghanistan.

Now we learn that two years before the explosion, the MoD asked BAE Systems to look at the aircraft to see whether it was safe to continue flying it. The company came back with a recommendation that a fire detection and suppression system should be fitted in the bomb bay. The MoD ignored the recommendation.

When the pilot of XV230 reported his aircraft was on fire, he said the fire was in the bomb bay. The Harrier jet that followed the Nimrod down as its crew tried to steer it to the safety of Kandahar air base said the starboard wing exploded first, followed by the rest of the aircraft.

The continued claims that everything is just fine and dandy is a national disgrace that should shame us all. Our servicemen and women risk their lives for us day in day out in Iraq and Afghanistan, the least they deserve is that we provide the necessary funds to ensure that if they are killed, it isn’t by their own equipment.

Comments

[edradour]

In your excellent article, you finish by reporting:

"We needed to take into account the practicalities of the suggested changes and the operational impact on the aircraft. Based on these, it was not thought appropriate to follow their suggestion".

By "practicalities", one assumes they mean cost, given BAeS would not have suggested the modification if it were not technically feasible or pragmatic.

By "Operational impact" they mean they have NOT invested in sufficient aircraft over the last two decades - quite the opposite, the Nimrod fleet is being run down from 30+ to around a dozen.

Not appropriate? How appropriate it is for the MoD to consider the safety of their Servicemen? I'd say it was an obligation.

[William 29]

Just had a thought ! reading that the MoD is going to purchase 70,000 laptops that I assume will come complete with a zero memory (for the non storage of records). The old infantryman/mechanical engineer in me thought - why not multi role the laptops, if they were encased in chobam armour - just think Hi tec sangars built from 7.7 billion worth of taxpayers money. In those silent hours on stag googling away the stag.

[gavin]

Agree with you entirely.

I still can't work out why we don't buy 'off the shelf' versions of say Transport Aircraft or Helicopters etc?

The US has spent billions on R&D and have done the ground work for us. If we had any sense we'd save money and time crucially that way..

I'd personally like to see the RAF pick up atleast another 10 C17 Globemasters preferably this next year.

Likewise i'd like to see the RN operate the latest E2D Hawkeye which would give the RN immense radar cover and save the need for regular fighter patrols..

[william 29]

Dear Gavin

I worked it out awhile ago watching Wimbledon - the match I saw was won on backhanders !