Chinook Crash

The 1994 crash of Chinook with top Northern Ireland intelligence experts on board into the Mull of Kintyre has remained the source of intense speculation ever since. The book is not only a full account of the incident and the subsequent on-going controversy over blame, but also attempts to solve the mystery about this accident. After the accounts of those who witnessed the crash or communicated with the aircraft on its fateful journey, the book analyses the activities of the crew on the day in question, including the maintenance record and the behaviour of the aircraft. This book will largely justify the claim of the RAF heirarchy that the cause was gross negligence by the crew, but not for the reason they give.

Real and imagined events and characters are expertly woven together in this political thriller about international power struggles, terrorism, and undercover agents. Building up to the mysterious Chinook helicopter crash at Mull of Kintyre in 1994, which killed 25 top British intelligence officials, the novel introduces Martin Carter, a Vietnam veteran and U.S. Special Forces agent who is recruiting for a dangerous mission in Europe. After a murder in Paris, a gun battle near Oxford Street, and a shattering explosion in a top-secret government chamber inside the Channel Tunnel, Martin finds out why he’s really been sent to Europe—and that it’s too late to back out. As powerful G7 countries plot to eliminate the IRA, a second deadly scheme is being plotted against Britain.

This is an important book. Ethics is not an easy topic, and arguably the ethics of IT is less so—not leastdue to its potential for developing and evolving in ways that are either unforeseen or unimaginable . . . . Use this book as a practical resource, an informative and educational source of material in developing expertise, but also as an invaluable toolkit to support practical application of ethical thinking. —Declan Brady, President of the Irish Computer Society and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies Digital technology is about people. It is about those who plan, develop and implement applications which other people use and are affected by. It is about the impact on all these people as well as on the world at large. Ethical Digital Technology in Practice takes a real-world perspective to explore these impacts over time and discover ways in which to promote ethical digital technology through good practice. It draws upon the author’s published articles in trade magazines, professional journals and online blogs. These are synthesised into a blueprint which addresses, in a practical manner, the societal issues surrounding the increasing use and abuse of digital technology. It is a follow-up book to the author’s book The Evolving Landscape of Ethical Digital Technology, which has a researcher’s perspective. This book is a hands-on account of the computer revolution from 1995 to the current day when the world is increasingly dependent on digital technology. It explores some of the social and ethical issues that are part of this revolution. This is not a book about deep philosophical and technical concepts. Nor does it claim to be comprehensive. It is the author’s personal account of technological change and its effects on people. It is written by a boy who was smitten by computer technology at the age of 15, became a computer professional and subsequently spent many years showing young people how to develop and use digital technology in a good way. It is a book based upon the author’s engagement with practitioners, academics and students during the period as well as his continued fascination with this fantastic technology. Ethical Digital Technology in Practice is a book about the real world, of what has happened and what might happen as digital technology continues to pervade.

The untold story of the birth of the Predator drone, a wonder weapon that transformed the American military, reshaped modern warfare, and sparked a revolution in aviation The creation of the first weapon in history whose operators can stalk and kill an enemy on the other side of the globe was far more than clever engineering. As Richard Whittle shows in Predator, it was one of the most profound developments in the history of military and aerospace technology. Once considered fragile toys, drones were long thought to be of limited utility. The Predator itself was resisted at nearly every turn by the military establishment, but a few iconoclasts refused to see this new technology smothered at birth. The remarkable cast of characters responsible for developing the Predator includes a former Israeli inventor who turned his Los Angeles garage into a drone laboratory, two billionaire brothers marketing a futuristic weapon to help combat Communism, a pair of fighter pilots willing to buck their white-scarf fraternity, a cunning Pentagon operator nicknamed "Snake," and a secretive Air Force organization known as Big Safari. When an Air Force team unleashed the first lethal drone strikes in 2001 for the CIA, the military's view of drones changed nearly overnight. Based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews, Predator reveals the dramatic inside story of the creation of a revolutionary weapon that forever changed the way we wage war and opened the door to a new age in aviation.

How scientific developments can sometimes go wrong and how corporations and scientists attempt to cover up the unintended consequences.

A “blunt, bold debut memoir” of women’s lives on an army base and the intimate hardships of war and deployment on this community (Kirkus) Raised as an army brat, Angie Ricketts though she knew what she was in for when she eloped with Darrin – then an Infantry Lieutenant – on the eve of his deployment to Somalia. Since then, Darrin, now a Colonel, has been deployed eight times, serving four of those tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Ricketts has lived every one of those deployments intimately – distant enough to survive the years apart from her husband, but close enough to share a common purpose and a lifestyle they both love. With humor, candor, and a brazen attitude, Ricketts pulls back the curtain on a subculture many readers know, but few will ever experience. Counter to the dramatized snapshot seen on Lifetime's Army Wives, Ricketts digs into the personalities and posturing that officers' wives must survive daily – whether navigating a social event at the base, suffering through a husband's prolonged deployment, or reacting to a close friend's death in combat. At its core, No Man's War is a story of sisterhood and survival. As Ricketts states: "We tread those treacherous waters together. Do we sometimes shove each other's heads underwater for a few seconds? Maybe even on purpose? Of course. Are we sometimes dragged underwater ourselves by the undertow created by all of us struggling together too closely? Without a doubt. But we never let each other drown. Our buoyancy is our survival."

In June 1994, the Chinook helicopter ZD576 crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in bad weather, killing all 4 crew members and 25 civilian and military passengers on board. A Ministry of Defence internal inquiry found that the crash was caused by pilot error which amounted to gross negligence. The House of Lords appointed an ad hoc Select Committee in 2001 to examine whether this conclusion was justified. This publication contains minutes of oral evidence taken by the Committee from technical experts and RAF officials, as well as written evidence from a number of sources. It also contains the text of the RAF Board of Inquiry report into the crash, and the text of the statement by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. Both reports have previously been treated as confidential.

The Review team were appointed to examine all available evidence relating to the findings of the RAF Board of Inquiry in the fatal accident on 2 June 1994 in which RAF Chinook helicopter ZD576 crashed on the Mull of Kintyre, killing all 29 on board. The accident resulted in one of the worst peacetime accident and dealt a severe blow to the services and agencies of which the passengers were important members. The investigating Board were unable to determine a definite cause of the accident despite detailed analysis. They, however, concluded that the most probable cause was the selection by the pilots of an inappropriate rate of climb which was insufficient to enable them to safely overfly the high ground of the Mull of Kintyre. The finding has been and remains controversial. The unfairness to deceased aircrew in disciplinary procedures was recognised and the Air Force Board has accepted the introduction of a provision which created a very high standard of proof in relation to findings of negligence. Because of the absence of a cockpit recorder and flight data recorder it cannot be known what was going on in the cockpit in the moments before the crash. The Reviewing Officers' approach to this gap in the evidence was to apply to both pilots what amounted to a presumption of negligence which was inconsistent with the standard of proof. In conclusion this Review recommends that the findings of pilot negligence be set aside; that the Ministry of Defence should consider offering an apology the pilots' families; and that the Ministry of Defence should reconsider its policy and procedures for the transport of personnel