I refer to Sir William Wratten's submission at the hearing of the Select Committee last Wednesday when he opined that the point of negligence was prior to the way point change.

  In 1998 when Sir William first put forward this hypothesis, which as I understand it is that the crew were too close to the Mull at way point change, I decided to look at the available evidence—that is the diagrams in Annex AQ (see p 161 of HL Paper 25 (i)).

  The point is simple, if you take point K defined by the MOD as the "Most likely position of aircraft at leg transfer" it is precisely half the distance from the land mass ahead that ZD 576 would have been at point R (the Sheriff's unchallenged position of where the crew assumed they were).

  There is no evidence that point K is anything but speculation (see Aidan O'Neill's comments—p 163 of HL Paper 25(i)).

  I am sure their Lordships will have noticed this discrepancy, but, in the event that they have not, you may care to draw it to their attention.

11 November 2001