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Originally Posted by WHISTLED
How can they say its never been airworthy they have 10,000's of air hours with few accidents.
Lets be real it is an antiquated aircraft and should have been replaced ages ago but it remained fit for purpose.
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as I understand it that assessment was based on this
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This week a senior engineer from defence and aerospace firm BAE Systems told the inquest that his predecessors, who made the Nimrod some 40 years ago, failed to fit a fire protection system on a key area of risk on the aircraft.
And the firm's head of airworthiness Tom McMichael said that if the evidence heard was correct, the Nimrod planes had, at the time of the tragedy, been flying in an unairworthy state for 37 years.
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from the linked article above.
Further reading suggests that the Nimrod's air to air refuelling option was originally retro-fitted for operations during the Falklands conflict & was never re-designed in subsequent refits.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1977632.ece