The third in the Kintyre Express fleet of small fast passenger ferries Continue reading
Tag Archives: fleet
Kintyre Express collects third – and 75th – Redbay Stormforce 11
Joining the Kintyre Express team in Campbeltown yesterday, crossing the North Channel to pick up their third fast passenger ferry, Continue reading
Cold lay-up for beginners
Most people following and contributing to the rolling story of Clydeport and the Loch Striven raft Continue reading
Westminster report voices concerns about MCA survey staffing
The House of Commons’ powerful Public Accounts Committee has issued Continue reading
2009 Tiree Wave Classic: action & results
11.00 11th October: Yesterday’s first day of this year’s Classic hit Continue reading
MoD grounds Nimrod fleet 30 months after inquest blames aircraft for 14 in-flight refuelling deaths
The Ministry of Defence has now announced that it is grounding the BAE Nimrod fleet from 31st March. The aircraft will have their engine bay hot-air ducts and their fuel seals replaced.
These were each thought to have played a critical role in an accident in September 2006 that claimed the lives of 14 servicemen based at RAF Kinloss. The men died when fuel leaking during in-flight refuelling hit a hot pipe.
The coroner at their inquest in May 2008, Andrew Walker, said that the aircraft had ‘never been airworthy’ and called then for the entire fleet to be grounded. The then Defence Secretary, Des Browne, multi-tasking as Scottish Secretary, insisted that the aircraft were safe to fly.
The families of those who died back in September 2006 will reasonably wonder why it has taken so long to make this decision.
Those who have had to fly Nimrod since then will wonder why their safety has been consistently compromised.
The crew who must continue to fly the aircraft until 31st March – and their families – will wonder why the, now admittedly unsafe, aircraft are to be kept in the air for another three weeks.
All the aircraft concerned are based overseas and the MoD says that there will be no operational impact from their withdrawal. This rather defies logic since, in his written statement to the House of Commons, Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth says that the temporary halt to overseas operations ‘will allow us to free up the maximum number of aircraft for the modification programme while also allowing Nimrod to continue with its critical homeland security tasks’.
It is hard to see how a temporary halt to overseas operations can be described as without operational impact.
Then there is a bit of compensatory spin on continuing ‘homeland security’. This is itself undermined by the fact that the movement of engineering staff from Nimrod’s home base at RAF Kinloss to work on the modifications at RAF Waddington ‘will cause a temporary reduction in routine UK-based Nimrod flying but will not affect our ability to protect UK interests at home’.
Again, where’s the logic. Any reduction to what is considered a necessary flight frequency cannot but ‘affect our ability to protect UK interests at home’.
Then the MoD say there will be no operational impact in Afghanistan because they plan to use other UK and coalition aircraft to cover any shortfall. This begs the question why they have not done this long before now.
Nothing adds up. It never did. We can only hope that the Nimrods in the air between now and 31st March get back to base safely.
The photograph, above, of a BAE Nimrod in flight is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
The Ileach breaks big story on new Islay ferry incompatability with existing ports
The Ileach, Islay’s cracking newspaper whose jourmalism is after our own heart, broke a major story in its last issue. (The latest is due out at the end of this week.)
The paper has been systematically pursuing a serious omission in strategic forethought in CMAL’s commissioning of its new, larger, £21 million Islay ferry – like whether it can actually dock at and use existing facilities at the ports for the route.
The Ileach was well informed that there was a problem and raised the issue with CMAL, The company’s first response was to say that it, at Port Ellen and Kennacraig, it proposed ‘to instigate a modernisation programme to precede the delivery of the new ferry in 2011′ - with the comforting qualification: ‘Whilst the existing infrastructure on Islay and the mainland will accommodate the new ferry’.
The Ileach then enquired whether the developments at the mainland port of Kenacraig and the Islay port of Port Ellen would be simultaneous or consecutive. A good question – there would be little value in having port facilities enabling, say, a ferry to depart from the mainland but unable to get into Port Ellen.
CMAL’s reply was that: ‘the new vessel will be able to use the existing ports as they are at present, however this is not ideal and some minor modifications are being developed’.
The Ileach’s research continued and on 23rd February they told CMAL: ‘We are being told that significant work will have to take place to modify the new linkspan at Port Askaig (Editor’s Note: this linkspan has been installed quite recently as part of a major re-engineering of the harbour facilities at Port Askaig, a contract which has been attended by long term and serious difficulties for the operation of the small car ferry over to Jura) and that this work has been costed at approx £500,000′.
The newspaper said that it understood that: ‘works costing a similar amount will need to be carried out at Kennacraig … and that (the ferry) will not be able to operate from the present Port Ellen infrastructure at all – and that serious redevelopment costing at least £10 million will be required’.
The profound concern for Islay is that, as The Ileach went on to stress to CMAL, if its information is correct: ‘this would mean the de facto closure of of Port Ellen as a ferry port when the new Islay ferry commences operations? Certainly for years, if not for good?’
The company’s reply, following a long paragraph of the sort of self-justifying ‘corporate speak’ that degrades language, was: ‘With the design of the new Islay vessel now finalised and construction underway, detailed design work is currently ongoing in respect of the associated pier and harbour infrastructure. The new vessel will be able to be berthed safely and securely at the recently completed Port Askaig facility. The new vessel can also be accommodated at the existing Kennacraig facility. At Port Ellen, detailed examination has revealed that passengers and vehicles could not be accommodated in its current form.
‘CMAL will continue to work very hard to consider how best to develop improvement works at Port Ellen and Kennacraig.’
CMAL say it is holding public meetings at Port Ellen and at Tarbert on the mainland on 10th and 11th March: ‘where we hope to feedback from the public consultation and detail our preferred construction timetable subject to funding’. Whatever that means.
The Ileach’s persistent enquiries have clearly forced into the open a serious problem for the development of ferry transort to and from Islay. This is local journalism at its very best. You can subscribe to The Ileach online and, wherever you are in the world, you will be emailed a link to download a pdf file of the latest issue.