The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

The Process
15.32
15.33
Chapter 15 – BOI Recommendations and Post-XV230 Events and Measures
In an attempt to address the above issues, BAE Systems suggested that advantage could be taken of an updated
version of CASSANDRA, which permitted the separation of individual causes and their mitigations. This proposal
was accepted by the Nimrod IPT and a revised draft Pro-Forma was produced taking advantage of this facility.
Work on the new drafts was further prioritised to a sub-set of four of the 11 priority zones. The initial versions
of the new Pro-Formas were approximately four to five pages long. The intention was that, as the draft Pro-
Formas were produced, they would be circulated for comment among the stakeholder group and a final version
produced, suitable for publication. Further, advice was provided from the front line engineers at RAF Kinloss as
to their subjective assessment of the probability of some of the identified hazards.
The minutes of the meeting on 13 March 2008 record the aspiration to have the selected four of the 11 priority
zones completed in draft form and passed to the Nimrod IPT by 21 March 2008. By December 2008, this had
still not happened.
Lack of Progress
15.34
Two further SC2 meetings were held in April and May 2008, but the revised Pro-Formas were still not available
for review outside BAE Systems Chadderton. In April 2008, it was proposed by BAE Systems that an ‘on aircraft
assessment’ should be added to the process and that it was possible that new ‘causes’ might be found which
were not identified in the original NSC. Difficulties were encountered in separating out individual causes and,
on 21 May 2008, the Nimrod IPT agreed to allow BAE Systems to treat any emergent causes as new, additional
work under separate tasking, i.e. the price continued to rise. It was also noted at the meeting on 21 May 2008
that the Pro-Forma for Hazard H44 was 80% complete and that for Hazard H73 (No. 7 Tank Dry Bay) 85%
complete.
15.35 By 2 July 2008, a review of ‘causes’ for the 11 priority zones was “ still ongoing and dates have yet to be finalised
for the on aircraft visit”. At a ‘senior stakeholder review’, including the Nimrod IPT Leader (IPTL), on 15 July
2008, it was agreed that the maintained condition of the aircraft would be recognised during the zonal surveys,
in addition to the original ‘as designed’ condition. A programme ‘end date’ of December 2008 was announced
and agreed.
Extraordinary review
15.36
15.37
By December 2008, none of the draft Pro-Formas had reached any of the other parties involved and an
extraordinary review meeting was arranged at BAE Systems Chadderton. The representation was at a senior
level and included the IPTL and BAE Systems’ Chief Engineer for the Nimrod, Martin Breakell. Early in the
agenda, and notwithstanding the comprehensive manner in which the original NSC had been restructured
throughout 2008, it was re-affirmed that the review of the NSC was in fact a ‘periodic review’ which would
have taken place in any event five years after the original NSC was produced. A new target date of end of March
2009 was agreed by the Nimrod IPT.
The December 2008 meeting also involved a review of the progress made in respect of both the functional
and zonal hazard Pro-Formas. By this time, the on-aircraft inspections of zones had commenced and work was
progressing in relation to other zones in addition to the original 11 high priority ones. Of the 202 functional
hazards, 55 Pro-Formas were presented as 80% complete and 17 were between 50 – 80% complete. It was
noted by a BAE Systems attendee that, as a ‘sanity check’ of progress, this represented only one third of the total
of functional hazards since the beginning of the project. He was clearly referring here to the fact that completion
of only 30% of the total number of functional hazards since May 2008 (this 30% being at best 80% complete)
did not bode well for meeting the March 2009 deadline. Zonal hazards were presented as having been tackled
in several different packages. Package 1 was 85% complete and Package 2a had all causes complete to 65%. It
would appear that Hazards H44 and H73 had not advanced very far since their designation in May as 80/85%
complete respectively. The summary slide noted “High Risk Zones will be complete in March 2009” and May
2009 was the predicted overall completion date.
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