I have to say, Chris, that your final paragraph seems to be the most
appropriate conclusion in the circumstances, perhaps with the addition
after "pressure of the occasion" of "and the presence of the Air Marshal".
It was clearly not a run of the mill exercise, and maybe serves to show
that even a ceremonial jolly can go spectacularly wrong.
Yes, there are clearly inconsistencies in the various stories (note I used
the word "allegedly") and perhaps also in the Inquiry, which I have not
read it, but if you think Wikipedia is in need of correction, I would look
forward to your edits :-)
Piers
On Thu, 2 Mar 2017 at 06:30, ChrisB <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> No doubt that there was something wrong with the approach, Piers, but I’d
> be loath to trust too much to Wikipedia: there is too much supposition in
> that article, not to mention inconsistencies. For instance, it mentions
> that the captain was Sqn Ldr Howard, but then that the co-pilot ignored the
> order to divert. The captain would be the one to take that decision,
> whether or not there was an air officer on board.
>
> I have no reason to think that an ILS approach would have been any more
> successful than a GCA: the former requires interpretation by the pilot,
> whereas for the latter the pilot merely has to follow directions from the
> controller on the ground. In PPRuNE someone posts that the cloudbase was
> 300ft (Wiki mentions only the visibility, admittedly appalling at 150m)
> which gave a decent margin above the normal Decision Height of 200ft.
>
> I suspect that the pilot became disorientated in the latter stages of the
> approach, perhaps under the pressure of the occasion, and flew the aircraft
> into the ground.
>
> Chris
>
> >
> >>
> >> The very first Vulcan delivered to RAF provided the first example of the
> >> front seat crew ejecting, while the rest (+1 civilian passenger!)
> >> perished... at London Heathrow airport of all places... and (strange to
> >> relate), the Vulcan did not have ILS fitted... yet the Air Marshal up
> front
> >> (perfectly normal, no doubt) allegedly insisted on landing in very poor
> >> weather. RIP three squadron leaders and one Avro technical advisor.
> >>
> >> Memorable for all the wrong reasons.
> >>
> >> Google XA897.
> >>
>
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