Misdirected Loyalty
The animadversions of the Minister of Civil Aviation on the report of the court which investigated the Prestwick air crash of October 20th, 1948, raise points of great general interest. The court was set up in the normal way by the Minister himself, and in the normal way it proceeded to examine the available evidence and to determine, as far as was possible, what happened to cause the accident in which forty people were killed. The court's report, which was signed by the president, a King's Counsel, and by the assessor, describes the disaster as the result of "an unexpected chain of adverse circum- stances," some of which can be discovered, others of which must remain a mystery. Among the former the report includes the failure of elements in the ground staff at Prestwick to fulfil the detail of their duties. In a foreword to the report the Minister, Lord Pakenham, declares that he and the Minister for Air are "seriously worried" by the implication that the ground staff were at fault, and that "after much careful thought's they have come to the conclusion that the ground staff was in no way to blame. That is a most extra- ordinary statement. The president of the court, in his published reply to the Minister, naturally makes the point that the only possible reason for contradicting the finding of the court would be the pro- duction of fresh evidence, but of this there is no hint. Apparently the cause of the Minister's worry is that the members of the ground staffs, "being civil servants, are not in a position to defend them- selves publicly in any way." Carried to such a pitch, departmental loyalty becomes a 'principle with the most dangerous implications. It would not simply make nonsense of all inquiries such as that under dispute, but would erect yet another formidable barrier against public supervision or criticism of nationalised undertakings.
Previous page
