2 Which type should they aspire to being, and why? The Nimrod, a 37‑year old RAF aircraft engaged in a surveillance mission in Afghanistan, burst into flames with the loss of 14 people on board. This was not an incident associated with a confrontation with enemy forces. An authoritative report, published in October 2009 judged that the crash was entirely due to a failure by the UK Ministry of Defence

(MOD) officials and defence industry experts to conduct safety checks on the plane. The report concluded that a four-

year safety exercise designed to identify potential problems with the Nimrod had been a less than satisfactory event. The MOD and two defence contractors involved in the maintenance – BAE Systems and Qinetiq – were criticised.

The report made the serious point that the inadequate safety review was the result of the emphasis in the MOD from the late 1990s on managing budgets rather than guaranteeing safety. It was noted that there had been a shift in culture and priorities in the MOD towards business and financial targets at the expense of safety and airworthiness. The shift away from safety towards a culture of penny-

pinching over soldiers’ lives must now be reversed.