http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3104675.eceBy Andrew Johnson
Published: 28 October 2007
Yet more safety fears over the RAF's ageing Nimrod spy planes have come to light, showing that the fleet continued flying despite hundreds of crew reports warning of potentially lethal faults on the aircraft.
Concerned flight crews complained repeatedly for years about problems ranging from leaking fuel pipes and smoke and fumes coming in from bomb bays, MoD documents confirm.
As part of our Military Covenant campaign, this newspaper has been calling for better equipment for Britain's armed forces.
More than 100 incidents were reported in the months between September last year and June 2007, when the records end. British troops suffered their biggest single loss of the conflict in Afghanistan when a Nimrod crashed in September 2006, killing all 14 aboard. Leaked emails revealed this week that the MoD had been aware of concerns about fuel leaks on that aircraft.
The incidents recorded on the Defence Aviation Centre database all resulted "in the aircraft sustaining damage or a person receiving an injury or which discloses a flight safety hazard or potential hazard". In the past 20 years, pilots and crew have reported about 2,000 such incidents. Other documents obtained under freedom of information legislation show that the planes' manufacturer, BAE Systems, flagged up a potentially lethal problem earlier this year – that if a fire broke out in the bomb bay, there was no mechanism for putting it out.
The fleet of 18 planes was put into service in the late 1960s, and a £3bn project to replace it is behind schedule and over budget.
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