Despite the Military Aviation Authority [MAA] report on the fatal collision of two RAF Tornado GR4s over the Moray Firth off Lossiemouth on 3rd July 2012, the Ministry of Defence [MoD[ has even yet not installed collision warning systems on the RAF's fast jets.
The MAA report on the accident, released in June 2014, indentified 17 contributory factors and seven other factors as responsible for the collision. One factor was the lack of anti-collision equipment on the Tornados.
In its report, online here, the MAA said there was 'much opportunity for this mid-air collision to be prevented'. It noted that there was no collision warning system [CWS] on board the Tornado fleet – a system recommended for many years but never installed. The MAA report said it was unfortunate that what it described as a ‘final safety barrier’ making crews aware of close proximity was not present in the jets.
Today, 14th January 2015, the Annual Air Safety Report from the Director General of the Military Aviation Authority [MAA], Air Marshal Garwood, is highly critical of the continuing lack of any collision warning systems on the main fast jets the RAF flies
Over 20 years ago now, CWS was proposed for Tornado Jets -but where is it? There is also no similar system for Typhoon and the Joint Strike Fighter.
Air Marshal Garwood says non installation is ‘unsustainable‘ and needs to be addressed with ‘full haste’.
SNP Defence Spokesperson, Angus Robertson MP – who is SNP Group Leader at Westminster and whose constituency includes RAF Lossiemouth, home to both Tornados and the new Typhoons says: ‘This is a hugely damning report for the MoD. Twenty years after it was proven and recommended that these systems would save lives, they remain to this day uninstalled.
‘It is clear that the MoD with its cavalier approach to safety, has learned no lessons as it has not even made the systems mandatory on new fast jets it acquires, while it drags its feet installing them on the ones they use already.
‘The Director General is right to say that there is unnecessary risk – which includes an unthinkable collision with a civilian airliner – and the MoD have known this for decades and have done far too little.
‘Importantly this report lends even more weight to the calls for a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the tragic collision in July 2012. The buck is continuing to be passed – it must stop and those who are responsible for this sorry and dangerous saga are held fully to account.’
This is an unanswerable position statement.