RAF Fast Jets

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on securing a debate on what all hon. Members accept is an important matter. I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond, if not to all the hon. Gentleman’s questions—he acknowledged that he asked a great many. I will attempt to answer as many as I can and, where I am unable to do that, we will write to him in due course.

Air safety is of paramount concern not only to me, but clearly to everyone in the RAF and in the Ministry of Defence. I am well aware of the hon. Gentleman’s interest in the matter. He is a consistent questioner of the Department on the subject. I am therefore pleased that we have an opportunity to have a debate about it and to talk specifically about the RAF’s fast jet operations.

I pay tribute to the men and women of the RAF who operate fast jets and dedicate their service to the defence of our country. The hon. Gentleman rightly raised concerns about the tragic loss of Squadron Leader Sam Bailey, Flight Lieutenant Hywel Poole and Flight Lieutenant Adam Sanders, when two Tornadoes collided above the Moray firth near his constituency two years ago last week. My thoughts and sympathies are also with the families and friends of those who died so tragically.

I wish to make it clear from the outset that the RAF is satisfied that all risks to life associated with the operation of its fast jets are both tolerable and as low as reasonably practicable—ALARP. If that were not the case, the RAF would not fly these aircraft. I can assure the House that air safety is at the core of all the RAF’s aviation activity. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will accept that no flying can ever be without risk, yet prior to that tragic loss and despite the proximity events to which he has referred, there has not been a mid-air collision involving RAF Tornado for 13 years.

The service inquiry into the tragic loss two years ago has been painstakingly thorough, taking more than 100 witness statements, including 60 interviews within three weeks of the incident. It concluded in November 2013 that the cause of the accident was lack of recognition of converging flight paths. Seventeen contributory factors were identified, of which only one was lack of a collision warning system. The purpose of the service inquiry was not to attribute blame, but to ensure that we learn lessons from that tragic incident and do whatever we can to prevent it from happening again. The MOD has accepted liability for the incident, and will continue to liaise closely with the families affected. As the matter is subject to further legal proceedings, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.

In recent years, and in particular following the publication of the Nimrod review, which was undertaken by Charles Haddon-Cave, QC in 2009, significant work has been undertaken to improve flight safety. Not least, we have now established an independent military aviation authority, the role of which is to regulate all military aviation activity and to assure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence that risks are being managed to an acceptable level. Since 2010, all aviation risks are owned and managed by named duty holders. They are very senior, suitably qualified and experienced officers who are personally and legally accountable for the safe operation of their aircraft.

The risk of mid-air collision is well known to the MOD and a great deal of work has been undertaken to reduce it, both in the UK and overseas. At the time of the incident, the MOD was in the process of introducing the centralised aviation data service, a pre-sortie planning tool that allows aircrew to plan a sortie and identify what other aircraft have planned routes in the vicinity. That planning tool is but one of a range of measures in place to minimise the risk of mid-air collision. Others include extensive aircrew training designed to ensure that pilots are fully aware of their surroundings; use of transponder equipment in military aircraft; aircraft and ground-based radar; and air traffic control.

It is clear from the hon. Gentleman’s remarks that he believes that a collision warning system would have prevented that tragic accident, but it is simply not possible to be that definitive. The service inquiry did not conclude that the lack of a collision warning system caused the accident. The inquiry specifically stated that

“it is not possible to completely remove the risk of colliding with another aircraft regardless of the controls and mitigations put in place”.

Therefore, a collision warning system is not a panacea. It cannot guarantee that a mid-air collision would never happen again. A CWS provides an additional level of security and another tool for the aircrew to use. The majority of RAF fleets have a collision warning system or a plan to fit such a system. Airborne collision avoidance systems are installed on all RAF multi-engine transport aircraft. The Hawk T2, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, has a traffic collision avoidance system—TCAS II—fitted, and we are currently in the assessment phase to fit a system to Hawk T1.

However, such capability on front-line fast jets remains developmental. It is not simply a matter of fitting existing equipment that is available for civil-registered aircraft. The Ministry of Defence is in fact a lead within Europe for the development and embodiment of CWS on existing fast military jets. That is despite the technological and operational challenges of retrofitting such a system to fleets whose performance far exceeds that of normal aircraft profiles and performance.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, we have initiated a programme to fit Tornado aircraft with a similar system. This is currently being trialled on two aircraft, and a third has been fitted for further development. On current planning, we intend to introduce this capability in stages from later this year.

Analysis is currently under way into the potential to fit a collision warning system on to Typhoon aircraft, but it is too early to provide a timetable for development of this capability. The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions in response to a previous written parliamentary answer I provided to one of his questions. I am not in a position to be able to give him any further comfort on why this is the case, other than that it is a very complex process, and that at this stage we are not far enough along in that process to be able to give clarity on either timetable or cost.

Looking forward, the F-35 Lightning II will have a limited collision warning system in its early capability block, which is supplemented by advanced sensors and software to provide pilots with a much higher level of situational awareness than our existing platforms.

On the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the procurement for the Tornado collision warning system, it is a matter of record that the commitment to fit a collision warning system to Tornado aircraft was made in the 1998 strategic defence review. Developing such a system proved difficult and attempts to develop a bespoke solution were unsuccessful during the early part of the past decade. It was only in 2008 that a commercial off-the-shelf collision avoidance system was identified as a potential solution for the Tornado GR4 fleet, and detailed design work began in December 2012 following the award of a contract to BAE Systems. It is true that the programme had been cancelled in April 2011—I think the hon. Gentleman said it was in 2010—as part of measures to bring the Department’s equipment budget back into balance, but that decision was revised within three months, clearly demonstrating the success of the post-Nimrod review duty holder construct. The duty holder elevated the risk to the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), on 14 June 2011, who within a week directed that the collision warning system should be reinstated.

Of course, fitment of a collision warning system to the Tornado fleet was not the only recommendation in the service inquiry. The other procurement recommendation was for new automatic personal locator beacons, which were contracted last month and are due to enter service in autumn 2015. I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the service inquiry findings were reviewed as a matter of urgency throughout the MOD and substantial progress has already been made in implementing the 42 recommendations.

I can answer one specific question posed by the hon. Gentleman in relation to the Tornado airworthiness review team report of 1994, which has been released by Defence Equipment and Support under a freedom of information request.

In conclusion, we recognise that air safety is not just about equipment. Risk management and training form an integral part of safety management. The RAF seeks to improve all aspects of its safety management system, which holds, at its core, the principle of continuous improvement. I would like to make it clear that the safety of our aircrew, other aviators and the general public, and protecting our aircraft to maintain a defence capability, are of utmost importance to the RAF.

Question put and agreed to.