An ordinary meeting of the Society took place at the Royal Southampton Yacht Cub on 1st February 2017. The President, Dr Keightley, was in the chair. The minutes of the previous meeting were taken as read. The Society’s new website was then demonstrated to the members present.The President introduced the evening’s speaker Ms Cheryl Pitt The Head of Materials in the Royal Naval 1710 Air Squadron who spoke to the title “Air Accident Investigation: The 1710 Naval Air Squadron and how we assist with crash investigations”. She outlined the history of the squadron. It was only created in 2010, in order to bring together the specialist techniques involved in routine aircraft scrutiny, repair, and crash investigation, which previously were spread around a number of different departments which was inefficient. The MOD had been thinking about outsourcing the different activities. The squadron has teams world-wide in 15 different locations. The commonest task is repairing damaged aircraft which they try to do at once. They assess the damage and design any repairs needed. The damage may be anything from holes in the fuselage to corroded mechanical parts. Ms Pitt’s department monitors aircraft for cracks and fractures, corrosion, and performing structural investigation and testing. It is available 24 seven 365 days a year. It also involves analysing any damage and perhaps designing a completely new part to prevent a recurrence. They also have crash investigation teams. Assessors start onsite and meticulously make and record scene-of-crash data and collect evidence. This may involve bringing up an aircraft from the sea bed or transporting enormous fragments, such as the fuselage from the Lockerbie disaster, to base. The pieces are then reconstructed as far as is possible. She described the case of a twin engined Tornado that crashed after one engine failed and the other then caught fire. The pilot bailed out.The plane disintegrated on hitting the sea. All Tornados were then at risk of being grounded which would be a military emergency. The department brought up many sacks of pieces from the sea bed and urgently investigated. On reconstructing the engine bay they found that the firewall between the two engines had a design fault such that when the first engine overheated and exploded it allowed burning shrapnel to pass into the adjacent engine bay setting it alight. As a result the firewall was redesigned and the aircraft were modified. Ms Pitt brought with her several damaged items for our inspection
The President thanked Ms Pitt for her presentation and the meeting was closed at 9.50pm