The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

Chapter 10A – Nimrod Safety Case: The Facts (Phases 1 and 2)
10A.195 Richard Oldfield’s PowerPoint presentation thus gave the clear indication that the task had been ‘completed’
by BAE Systems. This, however, was manifestly not the case. As Witness A [BAE Systems] readily accepted
in interview, with a large percentage of hazards left “Unclassified” by BAE Systems, the top-level goal could
not be said to have been achieved and the impression given by Richard Oldfield’s presentation was wrong.
Richard Oldfield’s presentation was, however, received without demur or comment by the unsuspecting
Nimrod IPT and QinetiQ representatives present. As the minutes record: “There were no comments or actions
arising from this presentation”. Richard Oldfield was unable to give a satisfactory explanation as to why his
presentation had said that the baseline reports were “complete” when, in fact, they were not complete,
either in substance or even form. He was also unable to give a satisfactory explanation of what he knew at
the time. He initially suggested in interview with the Review that it was his “understanding” at the time that
the task was complete; but he was unable to say when he became aware that 40% of the hazards had been
left open. The fact is that he was intimately involved managing all stages of the project and must have been
fully aware of the true position. He admitted in interview that “we were obviously under pressure to actually
meet the timescales.”
Richard Oldfield’s Notes
10A.196 Subsequent to Richard Oldfield’s first interview with the Review, some manuscript notes came to light which
he had made shortly before the Customer Acceptance Conference on his copy of the draft of Annex B
which formed part of Witness C [BAE Systems]’s PowerPoint presentation (see below) which showed he had
calculated the precise numbers and percentages of hazards which remained “Unclassified”, namely 12 out of
66 functional hazards (18%) and 22 out of 39 zonal hazards (56%), respectively. He therefore had a perfect
grasp of the figures at the time and knew that a large proportion of the NSC work remained to be done.
Chris Lowe’s presentation
10A.197 The second presentation was a short PowerPoint presentation by Chris Lowe entitled “THE SAFETY CASE.
WHAT IS IT?”. This was similar to previous presentations on the topic and explained the nature of a safety
case and the advantages of the ‘top down’ approach to safety cases for legacy aircraft.
Witness C [BAE Systems]’s presentation
10A.198 The third presentation was a presentation by Witness C [BAE Systems]. This comprised a presentation on
screen to the Nimrod IPT and QinetiQ of the CASSANDRA Hazard log ‘architecture’ and contents, and a
demonstration of how CASSANDRA worked. The demonstration required those at the meeting to crowd
round the single CASSANDRA computer terminal in another room. The screen presentation included screen
shots of an ‘interacting systems hazard’ (Hazard H54), together with pdfs of the associated Pro-Formas. In
the course of his presentation, Witness C [BAE Systems] also put up on the screen a table showing the ‘Post
Mitigation Probability’ of Hazards H1 to H105. This was a draft of what was to become Annex B to the BLSC
Reports. The table comprised four columns as follows:
Hazard Ref Title Post Mitigation
Probability
Status
H1 Environmental Hazard due to Adverse Weather
Climate or Conditions
Improbable Approved
H2 Environmental Hazard due to Contaminated
Runway
Unclassified Approved
H3
etc.
Environmental Hazard due to lightening strike Improbable Approved
10A.199 It is clear from Witness K [BAE Systems] and Richard Oldfield’s notes that the table was shown at the meeting.
It is also tolerably clear that most or all of the five pages of the table were put up on the screen including the
later pages showing the zonal hazards (Hazard H44 onwards) because the minutes record a request being
made by the Nimrod IPT representatives for a description of the zones to be included after each zone in
CASSANDRA. 77 It would have been apparent from a careful look at the third and fourth pages of the table
77 This was done in the final version of Annex B to the BLSC Reports.
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