Underfunding military in UK leads to disaster

Independent:

One of the worst disasters in recent British military history was the result of "incompetence, complacency and cynicism" by senior military figures which broke the covenant the country has with its soldiers, a devastating official report has concluded.

Fourteen service personnel were killed when their Nimrod spy plane crashed in Afghanistan in 2006 – the largest single fatality since the Falklands War – because the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sacrificed essential safety for the sake of saving money, the review said. The independent investigation, led by Charles Haddon-Cave QC, named 10 people who contributed to the "systemic breach of the military covenant" – the duty the nation owes to its armed forces. Five of those came from the Ministry of Defence – including two senior military officers of four-star rank – three from BAE Systems and two from QinetiQ.

The Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, told the Commons that two RAF officers have been removed from their posts because of their roles in the crash of aircraft XV230. They have been moved to staff positions without any safety aspects. The RAF is now considering what further action needs be taken against them.

The Nimrod MR2 exploded in mid-air near Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, shortly after air-to-air refuelling. The crew and passengers were on a mission to support Nato and Afghan forces in an operation against the Taliban in Helmand. A military board of inquiry found the crash was caused when leaking fuel came into contact with a hot-air pipe.

Yesterday Mr Haddon-Cave, a leading aviation lawyer, found there had been serious corporate shortcomings which led to the "lamentable" failures of a safety review carried out a year before the crash. Procedures were "riddled with errors" and the "best chance to prevent the accident to XV230 was, tragically, lost."

The organisational failures, said the report, were of such magnitude that this disaster echoed other major historic accidents, including the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, the sinking of the Marchioness and the King's Cross fire.

The MoD's safety system was "not fit for purpose". There was serious weakness among the personnel; an "unsatisfactory" relationship between the MoD and industry; an "unacceptable" procurement process, and a culture which "has allowed business priorities" to overcome concentrating on airworthiness.

The report stated: "BAE Systems deliberately did not disclose to its customer the scale of the hazard" and only "gave vague recommendations that 'further work' was required". The work carried out by the company was "poorly planned, poorly managed and poorly executed".

The customer, the MoD, also "bears substantial responsibility for the failure of the Nimrod Safety Case" and "failed to do its essential job of ensuring the safety of the Nimrod fleet".

Mr Haddon-Cave pointed at a time between 1998 and 2006, when financial targets appeared to take precedence over safety.

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This si one of the hidden costs of a welfare state like the UK. Money is lavished on health care and other welfare items while maintenance of military equipment is squeezed until the life is out of it. The UK began firmly going down hill as it increased its degree of socialism and dependency culture. Instead of focusing just on the military aspect of this tragedy they should focus on the dysfunctional welfare state that is not fit for purpose.