Martin Baker Aircraft to be prosecuted

Martin Baker Aircraft to be prosecuted

Author
Discussion

IanH755

1,849 posts

119 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
Taken from the PPRUNE -




"It is these words from the coroner which I believe have led to the HSE prosecution. I could be wrong but he was pretty clear in his assertion...

"Martin-Baker knew the parachute mechanism could jam if the nut and bolt were too tight as early as January 1990, the inquest was told.
The manufacturer warned some air forces but did not warn the MoD."




That's what will be argued in court.

Hopefully once in court the other part of the problem regarding the drogue deployment, the RAF & MOD's poor implementation of technical documentation, will also get a full hearing and lead to some major changes for those in the MOD/RAF sat in an office miles away from 1st line engineering who come up with these poorly thought out and implemented ideas with no accountability or an audit trail of their decisions, because once they start poking around the MOD/RAF upper management it'll all come tumbling down exactly the same as it did during the Haddon-Cave inquiry.

It's a shame that it always seem to cost someone their life before the MOD and desk bound RAF officer branch suddenly change their attitude, especially when they get hauled in front of coroners/judges and told to explain their lack of action whilst stood in front of the families involved, as an ex-boss of mine had to at Haddon-Cave. Then things start to happen!

Eric Mc

121,784 posts

264 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
Yes - it looks to me that MB are being taken as patsies on this one.

Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
IanH755 said:
Hopefully once in court the other part of the problem regarding the drogue deployment, the RAF & MOD's poor implementation of technical documentation, will also get a full hearing and lead to some major changes for those in the MOD/RAF sat in an office miles away from 1st line engineering
It won't happen. The rot goes way back before what Haddon-Cave said, at least as far back as the Chinook Mull of Kintyre crash. Indeed it was Haddon-Cave's statement about the 'Golden Years of Flight Safety' of the 1990s that protected those Very Senior Officers that dismantled the RAF's Airworthiness System in the first place.

If anybody ends up in court it will be relatively junior officers who will take the fall.




Edited by Ginetta G15 Girl on Wednesday 28th September 19:09

hidetheelephants

23,772 posts

192 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
jamieduff1981 said:
FourWheelDrift said:
Now that's very interesting.
It just sounds like the RAF/MoD have learned nothing from Haddon-Cave; this is the same st that killed a whole Nimrod crew and arguably caused other deaths and near-misses in the post-coldwar era, an utterly non-functional airworthiness monitoring/control system and hats who only care about good reports and their next posting.

Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
hidetheelephants said:
this is the same st that killed a whole Nimrod crew
Including a close personal friend of mine.

Evanivitch

19,807 posts

121 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
jamieduff1981 said:
FourWheelDrift said:
Now that's very interesting.
pprune said:
Again, the lack of a safety case, which would have highlighted the hazard and shown the mitigations, is a key factor.
Sorry, what? Having worked on safety cases for MoD before I can't believe this is true. Legacy system allowances?

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
Say MB get fined £5M, won;t they just pass that straight on to their customers? Ie ejector seats will get more expensive, and so, really it'll be us tax payers getting landed with the fine....

Eric Mc

121,784 posts

264 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
They don't just supply seats to the RAF and Royal Navy.

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
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Max_Torque said:
Say MB get fined £5M, won;t they just pass that straight on to their customers? Ie ejector seats will get more expensive, and so, really it'll be us tax payers getting landed with the fine....
Who does the fine get paid to?

jamieduff1981

8,022 posts

139 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
jamieduff1981 said:
FourWheelDrift said:
Now that's very interesting.
pprune said:
Again, the lack of a safety case, which would have highlighted the hazard and shown the mitigations, is a key factor.
Sorry, what? Having worked on safety cases for MoD before I can't believe this is true. Legacy system allowances?
Safety cases are easy to invalidate even where they exist, if a fundamental aspect underpinning them is changed without updating the safety case. That's the operator's job.




As for this over torqued nut - an ejection seat is a hugely complex machine in its own right, and Martin Baker have to provide one which works. They can only reasonably be expected to advise the customers of specific things they can do wrong to make it not work by exception. Unless the customer consults with Martin Baker and tells them that they plan to start dismantling the seat themselves, why should Martin Baker be expected to communicate that?

Do we expect our car manufacturers to write and tell us that our brakes might fail if we dismantle them ourselves and over torque the brake hose banjo bolts complete with bodged DIY thread recutting when we rebuild them? Surely they'd know this could lead to a death? Why didn't they tell us we could ruin the machine they built by dismantling something we didn't tell them we were going to routine dismantle that they didn't foresee being dismantled by the customer?

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
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The assumption should be that the manufacturer holds ultimate expertise, although that assumption can be flawed. Is there an O&M manual?

jamieduff1981

8,022 posts

139 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
V8 Fettler said:
The assumption should be that the manufacturer holds ultimate expertise, although that assumption can be flawed. Is there an O&M manual?
Yes and undoubtedly, but the former is why the operator has a duty to consult with the manufacturer (design authority) before taking it upon themselves to dismantle things and put them back together and the latter will cover how to operate the seat and perform any maintenance the manufacturer prescribes.

That's why, looking back to cars, the manufacturer provides the dealer network with detailed manuals explaining how to perform maintenance and assembly replacements, but also why the dealer networks generally are neither qualified nor equipped to rebuild complex sub-assemblies, such as engine or gearbox rebuilds. If the manufacturer is expected to warranty these tolerance and assembly critical items, then they also want to tightly control who does this.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
Mave said:
Max_Torque said:
Say MB get fined £5M, won;t they just pass that straight on to their customers? Ie ejector seats will get more expensive, and so, really it'll be us tax payers getting landed with the fine....
Who does the fine get paid to?
Pretty sure we won't be getting a tax rebate...... ;-)

DJFish

5,917 posts

262 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
Mave said:
Who does the fine get paid to?
HSE fines go to the HSE.

They also introduced a Fee for Intervention scheme in 2012 (I think) which allows them to recover their costs through fines, which could mean they're more motivated to prosecute...

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
Max_Torque said:
Mave said:
Max_Torque said:
Say MB get fined £5M, won;t they just pass that straight on to their customers? Ie ejector seats will get more expensive, and so, really it'll be us tax payers getting landed with the fine....
Who does the fine get paid to?
Pretty sure we won't be getting a tax rebate...... ;-)
So it'll be tax neutral?

aeropilot

34,302 posts

226 months

Friday 30th September 2016
quotequote all
jamieduff1981 said:
V8 Fettler said:
The assumption should be that the manufacturer holds ultimate expertise, although that assumption can be flawed. Is there an O&M manual?
Yes and undoubtedly, but the former is why the operator has a duty to consult with the manufacturer (design authority) before taking it upon themselves to dismantle things and put them back together and the latter will cover how to operate the seat and perform any maintenance the manufacturer prescribes.

That's why, looking back to cars, the manufacturer provides the dealer network with detailed manuals explaining how to perform maintenance and assembly replacements, but also why the dealer networks generally are neither qualified nor equipped to rebuild complex sub-assemblies, such as engine or gearbox rebuilds. If the manufacturer is expected to warranty these tolerance and assembly critical items, then they also want to tightly control who does this.
Post #105 dated today on the PPrune thread is very interesting......

This impact of this court case could have far reaching consequences.

chuntington101

5,733 posts

235 months

Saturday 1st October 2016
quotequote all
DJFish said:
Mave said:
Who does the fine get paid to?
HSE fines go to the HSE.

They also introduced a Fee for Intervention scheme in 2012 (I think) which allows them to recover their costs through fines, which could mean they're more motivated to prosecute...
That's one way to commercialise the public sector!

padrc66

31 posts

134 months

Saturday 1st October 2016
quotequote all
nice idea but no, fines in criminal court go to the treasury

telecat

8,528 posts

240 months

Saturday 1st October 2016
quotequote all
aeropilot said:
jamieduff1981 said:
V8 Fettler said:
The assumption should be that the manufacturer holds ultimate expertise, although that assumption can be flawed. Is there an O&M manual?
Yes and undoubtedly, but the former is why the operator has a duty to consult with the manufacturer (design authority) before taking it upon themselves to dismantle things and put them back together and the latter will cover how to operate the seat and perform any maintenance the manufacturer prescribes.

That's why, looking back to cars, the manufacturer provides the dealer network with detailed manuals explaining how to perform maintenance and assembly replacements, but also why the dealer networks generally are neither qualified nor equipped to rebuild complex sub-assemblies, such as engine or gearbox rebuilds. If the manufacturer is expected to warranty these tolerance and assembly critical items, then they also want to tightly control who does this.
Post #105 dated today on the PPrune thread is very interesting......

This impact of this court case could have far reaching consequences.
So No Contract to Maintain the seats makes this MOD/RAF responsibility?

DJFish

5,917 posts

262 months

Saturday 1st October 2016
quotequote all
padrc66 said:
nice idea but no, fines in criminal court go to the treasury
Actually I think you're right, the hse then send you a bill for their services afterwards.