A very sobering read.
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Final paragraph -
“The loss of a jet valued at £81.8M and the subsequent £2.3M salvage operation is clearly very serious but fortunately, there were no major injuries or loss of life. If there is a silver lining to this cloud it comes from the multiple lessons that will be learned, potentially saving lives in future. Assuming the message that running short-handed with too many inexperienced people is addressed properly then it can only help make for a more effective capability in the long run.”
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Sobering, maybe, but not surprising. We’ve been underfunding and undermanning for so long, it’s a testament to the people on the ground that things like this haven’t happened more often.
I’m probably biased, but I also know what senior government figures sound like when they’re disingenuously euphemising the latest round of defence cuts.
Mark
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Ok so let’s be clear - the pilot has ultimate responsibility to make sure his/her ac is fit for flight. In this instance he didn’t. The final hole lining up in the ‘Swiss cheese’ air safety model…
Whilst the report mentions various ‘contributory’ factors; the ‘causal’ factor is human error. This has little or nothing to do with funding.
Whilst I don’t disagree about govt funding of the military in general (which actually reflects public ambivalence); actually taken holistically the first Carrier and F35 deployment was a massive success and actually gave the RN and world class strike capability for the first time since 1977.
Is this the same incident that happened when the BBC were filming on one of the Queen Elizabeth class Carriers? If so it happened during the pandemic, a fair few years ago now.
Literally the first words in the report tell you the date it happened!
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I watched it on tv. May have been another for all I know. I remember watching it, that’s all. Just wondered. Not something I keep an eye on and just curious if it was the same one.
I’m not going to read it, because I’ll end up throwing something heavy at someone.
But, your ‘causal factor’ might be oversimplifying a huge topic that has underfunding at its core. Add to that any operational pressures, perceived and/or real, and absolutely anyone worth listening to would be able to predict a string of incidents.
I wouldn’t recommend joining the U.K. armed forces to anyone I like. It’s crap, with none of the fun that people had in the 1950s to 1990s.
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