After a year in which the BAE Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft has received unprecedented negative publicity in the UK, it’s hardly surprising that BAE Systems and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) are not showing the new MRA.4 version here at Farnborough. Four years after it first flew, the Nimrod MRA.4 has still not made a public debut.
The negative publicity centered on the aging MR.2 version in Royal Air Force service, after a fatal crash in Afghanistan in September 2006 that killed all 14 onboard. The accident report concluded that the mid-air explosion was probably caused by fuel leaking onto a hot crossfeed air pipe in the starboard Number seven tank dry bay.
The RAF suspended air-to-air refueling of the Nimrods, and stopped using some of its hot-air systems in flight. But a heated technical debate and blame game has continued. A coroner who led the inquest into the death of the 14 servicemen said the entire Nimrod fleet had “never been airworthy from the first time it was released to service.” The MoD disputes this finding.
