The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

Chapter 11 – Nimrod Safety Case: Analysis and Criticisms
separate Electrical Systems Pro-Forma being prepared. Further, eight Electrical Systems appenda 68 completed
near the end consist of, at most, a few short paragraphs, invariably involving the phrase “further analytical
techniques are required” or “further analytical techniques are considered necessary”. There is little evidence of
even the initial analytical techniques implied. Indeed, four of the appenda 69 consist of a single sentence. Various
BAE Systems witnesses admitted in their evidence to the Review that Electrical Systems ran out of time. 70
11.133 The independent Electrical Systems Pro-Formas that do exist state that hazards “ have been reviewed without
recourse to any reported incident details”. This is contrary to the indications given by BAE Systems in its Preliminary
Hazard Identification Report71 and their Phase 2 Proposal72 that “service history i.e. Incident and Fault Reports”
would be used in the construction of the Safety Case. The Electrical Systems Pro-Formas, however, explicitly
exclude incident reports and fault reports as being used for any analysis. It is, therefore, difficult to see what
data was used to compile the Electrical Systems Pro-Formas. Indeed, the Electrical Systems comments made in
respect of Hazard H78 include that there was no photographic evidence. On what, basis, therefore, was any
‘analysis’ carried out?
11.134 Similarly, the suggested Electrical Systems addendum for Hazard H3, consists of an unreferenced e-mail,
highlighting what appears to be a scan of one document and the comment “there does not appear to be any
significant concern…..if there was any major shortcoming…… it would have surfaced by now”. Again, this
bears all the hallmarks of a complacent, tick-box approach against a background of assumed safety, in which
the fact that an accident has never happened before is taken as sufficient evidence of safety in lieu of any
proper, rigorous analysis.
11.135 Electrical Systems was not alone in this unsatisfactory approach. For instance, a number of Aerodynamics Pro-
Formas bear the phrase “this search does not constitute a complete list…as the search for relative archive
information was finite”. These words bear the clear implication that time constraints were placed upon staff,
who were aware that they had not examined all that they could have done. 73
BAE Systems’ disappointing response to Review’s audit
11.136 BAE Systems’ response to the Review’s audit of the Pro-Formas was disappointing to say the least. Its written
response comprised a line-by-line denial of many of the criticisms made and served to demonstrate that BAE
Systems’ primary concern was not to address the errors identified by the Review, but rather to defend its own
position. As will be apparent from the extracts I have cited in the footnotes above, most of its responses to the
errors fell into one of two categories; it either sought to deny the error existed at all, or was forced to recognise
the error (because it was obvious), in which case it sought to downplay its significance, or causative effect.
In relation to both categories, in my view, the vast majority of the points made by BAE Systems lack any real
substance and smack of a visceral reluctance on the part of BAE Systems to admit any mistakes at all.
Hazard H51
11.137 This is perhaps most starkly illustrated by a response by BAE Systems to a criticism raised by RAF Kinloss regarding
the Electrical Systems Pro-Forma for Hazard H51. The Pro-Forma in question stated in terms: “The fire bottles
located in the [Doppler] zone are associated with the bomb bay”. 74 There are no fire bottles in the zone in
68 Hazards H66, H67, H70, H72, H73, H74, H75 and H77.
69 Hazards H70, H73, H74 and H77.
70 Notwithstanding the evidence of BAE Systems’ witnesses, in its written submissions to the Review, BAE Systems maintained its position that the
appendum was merely “a more efficient manner in which to record the Electrical Systems contribution ... as opposed to the alternative of creating
two free-standing proforma documents, the results of which would then need to be merged”. BAE Systems denied that it implied any decrease in the
quality of the Electrical Systems’ analytical output. As explained above, I do not accept that submission.
71 Issue 1, dated April 2003, paragraph 4.2.
72 November 2003, paragraph 3.2.
73 BAE Systems denied this, stating that the scope of its task under the Phase 2 Proposal was to source and review extant mitigating material that was
readily available and that it was therefore agreed with the IPT that the search to be conducted by BAE Systems would be ‘finite’ in nature.
74 See page 4 of 4 (Section 8) of Electrics Pro-Forma for Hazard H51 dated August 2008.
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