Colin McRae Fatal accident enquiry - Errr why ??

[Porkis]

I see that there is now a fatal accident enquiry into the death of Colin McRae (RIP)

Not trying to be stupid here, but can someone explain why the hell we are now spending god knows how many £millions going over this accident in great detail, with Lanark sheriff court expecting this to take at least 4 months? WTF ??

I mean today alone, they whole lot had to leave the court room and visit various sites involved in the whole saga, such as where all the various witnesses saw the helicopter etc etc

What a complete waste of time, energy, and tax payers money.

As far as I recall, the AAIB couldn't come up with an exact reason as to why this all happened, but there was enough evidence to point to some risky flying going on, combined with on board video footage of whoops, screams, and howls of laughter etc .. so we have a guy who was an obvious adrenaline junkie and petrolhead and loved going as fast as possible, and it looks like he maybe got carried away one day in the chopper and went a little too low, or fast, or banked too steep ... so, is this really a mega surprise to any of us? probably not.

The guy is dead FFS!, who are they gonna blame?, and if the AAIB can't find a definitive reason, what the heck is some old guy in a wig going to conclude?

This country really - really has lost the plot.

Discuss ..

[Porkis]

JonRB said:

Porkis said:

Not trying to be stupid here, but can someone explain why the hell we are now spending god knows how many £millions going over this accident in great detail

Because 3 other people died, two of which were children. And McRae's flying license had expired.

Yeah okay, but if I went out today, and drove my car into a tree killing my son, and the next door neighbour and his son, would we have a FAI into that also? no I doubt it very much, even if my driving license had expired !

As I say, exactly who are we going to blame for this accident X number of million pounds and 4 months of completly wasted judge and court time later?

It's all just "jobs for the boys", and sod all to do with actually trying to find out anything ..

[Porkis]

sicasey said:

Any aviation accident is a big deal, hence the need to get to the bottom of it.

I don't disagree, certianly in the case of a 737 coming down, but this killed 4 people, and as we know, the AAIB have already done their thing and given us a conclusion .. my question is ... what more are we going to uncover with this pointless investigation by a judge at the local sheriff court ?

[Porkis]

ukzz4iroc said:

Where is the on board video footage? Sounds horrific.

No, you misunderstand, the footage showed "screams" and whoops of laughter (apparently) ... nothing bad .. it was a complete hoolie onboard and it's not available to watch, it's just been mentioned at various stages

[Porkis]

Soovy said:

Porkis said:

It's all just "jobs for the boys", and sod all to do with actually trying to find out anything ..

Ignorance.

and why would that be exactly?

[Porkis]

Soovy said:

Porkis said:

Soovy said:

Porkis said:

It's all just "jobs for the boys", and sod all to do with actually trying to find out anything ..

Ignorance.

and why would that be exactly?

What do you mean by "jobs for the boys"?

What experience do you have which allows to opine on the process?


None, I'll wager. Who do you dislike? Lawyers?

You're picking me up wrong on this. Actually I don't dislike lawyers or judges in the slightest, I would just like them to be doing something a little more worthwhile than this pointless exercise. I'm having a dig at the the people who make the decisions that this inquiry is actually necessary, and let's be honest, it's the same old crowd that then decide that this will drag on and on and on, and oh we need to go on trips out into the countryside, and oh let's drag it on even more ... my point is this, what exactly is this going to achieve? and who benefits by rewarding themselves with rather nice jobs/salary at the same time?

If as some have said, it's an insurance thing, then sure, let the insurance companies pick up the tab ... why oh why should this ridiculous investigation be funded by the taxpayer?

As for having experience to opine on the process, damn, I didn't know that as a taxpayer I had to have a law degree, or experience in the courts to query why this investigation was necessary, which is what I'm doing.

Edited by Soovy on Tuesday 25th January 16:13

[Porkis]

Marf said:

Soooooo ignorant.

Marf and Co, go and troll somewhere else

The Air Accident Investigation Board have ALREADY read the word ALREADY done their job, and have reached their final conclusion
This isn't what I querying .. I'm querying the now additional accident enquiry and having a second investigation ..

READ THE OP BEFORE diving in and making an idiot of yourself !!!

[Porkis]

eharding said:

Porkis said:

As for having experience to opine on the process, damn, I didn't know that as a taxpayer I had to have a law degree, or experience in the courts to query why this investigation was necessary, which is what I'm doing.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/law/fatalaccidentinquiries

The AAIB investigation itself is purely a technical exercise - what failings, either human or mechanical - caused the accident, and does not (should not) have any findings as to the legalities involved; these have to be decided by legal process.

The link above states there are generally 50 or 60 FAIs in Scotland each year - why is it this one in particular has rattled your chain?

Actually that link is quite educational, especially the number oif FAIs that result in a recommendation os "None"

I'm not rattled by just this one .. it's just that from my zero experience in flying, zero experience as a lawyer/judge/sheriff, zero experience as a medical examiner/petrolhead psycologist I just feel that there really isn't anything further to be gained by trawling through all of this, especially at great financial cost for months and months. There is no one left to blame, and I would have thought that taking on board the AAIB findings, and by what we do actually know as fact in this case, there's not really that much to be gained by this investigation, or is there?

That's what I'm asking, what is to be gained by this further investigation that we don't already know, or that will actually benefit us in some way, especially if it's good value for money.

I'm waiting to be blown away by an answer to that, rather than a few tts simply saying " soo ignorant"

But I am prepared to be educated .. as contrary to belief I don't actually know it all

[Porkis]

Eric Mc said:

Porkis said:

Marf said:

Soooooo ignorant.

Marf and Co, go and troll somewhere else

The Air Accident Investigation Board have ALREADY read the word ALREADY done their job, and have reached their final conclusion
This isn't what I querying .. I'm querying the now additional accident enquiry and having a second investigation ..

READ THE OP BEFORE diving in and making an idiot of yourself !!!

You obviously don't understand the law.

The CAA's job was to investigate the accident from a technical and aviation point of view. This they have done and have reported as was their brief.
It has been decided that there should be a wider investigation into other aspects of the accident which would include areas not covered by the CAA team and which could result in criminal or negligence charges being raised.
Thios would have significant ramifications for the families of those who have died and could raise the possibility of whether any sort of compemnsation might be payable.

Fortunately, not everything in human activity is subject to a "cost/benefit" analysis. Seeking justice and the truth goes beyond "taxpayer value".

Eric .. first good answer so far ...

Okay, so seeing as the person that "may" have been negligent in this case is dead, are we saying that this is really all down to the families of the dead being able to make a claim?

If so, how can it really be possible to apportion blame, seeing as non of the potential witnesses were in the helicopter, but from a distance, and in all cases so far, we're talking about farmers, and normal average people out dog walking .. hardly the voice(s) of people experienced in aircraft behaviour, so really, where is any evidence going to come from that may actually pin the blame on the pilot?

My question goes on ... what good really, can we expect to come from all of this?

[Porkis]

WeirdNeville said:

It's so sad that you don't seem to recognise that a death requires an investigation to explain it, and in cases of a complex 'accident' such as this that investigation may be a long and expensive process.

There are many good reasons to fully investigate such accidents: future safety, insurance, learning from the mistakes of others.

But the human cost is immeasurable and demands that everything that can be done is done to bring resolution to those affected whereever it is possible to do so.

Or put it another way: Your mother is found dead at the bottom of a quarry. 'She's dead, get over it.' Not such a reasonable response now, is it? You'd expect the authorites to do some form of investigation to ensure there's not a killer on the lose or that it wasn't her medication that made her jump. Or, you could pay for it all yourself if you think that's where the costs should come from, but post mortems and toxicology doesn't come cheap....

If my mother was found dead at the bottom of a quarry, I can pretty much guarateee that they wouldn't take at least 4 months and £millions to get to a conclusion over it

I do agree, let's find out everything there is to stop this happening again.
Okay so AAIB has said nothing that they can see was wrong with the aircraft, and that it basically looks like he flew it into the ground ... after carrying out a rather demanding manoeuver. So, I'm curious how do we stop this from ever happening again?

I'm about to give up on this ...


Let's try again. based on what we know about this incident, is there any point in yet ANOTHER detailed investigation costing £££, and taking forever?, or will sombody actually agree with me that the legal system really could be doing something a little more productive over this period?

Who wants to bet that the final conclusion on this case is "recommendations = none" but at least we'll all be a little lighter in the pocket for it all.

[Porkis]

WeirdNeville said:

Actually, even a straightforwards murder investigation costs over a million, and 4 months would be pretty good going.

I think you're on your own. You think it's a waste of your hard earned taxes.
Everyone else thinks it's part of a necessary and valuable process.

I fully understand why we do FAIs, but I think that there are cases where the case facts are so blooming obvious that it's a waste, or in this case, very little that is left to be found from speaking to dog walkers who were 3 miles away, and who contribute some rubbish such as "oh it sounded like it was in trouble, and it looked rather low - and was going rather fast"

and farmer Joe adding that "it was banking at a strange angle"

I mean seriously?

I think we all know what happened on that fateful day ... it's called testosterone, possibly combined with a strong wind coming from the wrong angle. We've all been there at some point, albeit probably not in the air.

[Porkis]

Soovy said:

I wonder what Porkis ace to grind is.

New poster, from Lanarkshire.....

Jeez, suspicious minds eh?

Actually I don't have an "ace"? to grind at all, this story pops up on my local news every as a daily update, and I thought I would have a rant on PH, and see what the community thought of the whole thing.

Nothing more. nothing less, and we all have to be a "new" user at somepoint eh?

[Porkis]

Yep ^^^^^^^

[Porkis]

^^^^ talk about being slightly off topic ^^^^

[Porkis]

Soovy said:

The point is that he knowingly flew other people without a licence, and therefore no insurance.

That's a really arrogant and sh tty thing to do.

Not quite! I don't for one second think that he was aware that his licence had expired, I don't think he was that silly .. I suspect it was more of an oversight, which makes the big difference between knowingly doing this(and therefore not being insured) and not.

[Porkis]

Just thought I'd throw this into the ring ..

If you watch Colin's "Pedal to the metal video" it actually shows you him flying his chopper around for a bit (not the one involved here though), and I remember watching this video way before that tragic day, and thinking Ohh wow that's a bit crazy they way he's flinging that thing around ...

Go watch it .. it tells you a lot about his mental approach to flying