Our thanks to Graham for this. The latest in a series of military crashes happening when women were in control of machines including helicopters and ships. A Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a descending airplane at Washington DC airport and a New Zealand Navy ship running aground on a coral reef come to mind, as does the US Navy submarine hunter (an aeroplane) with an all-female crew (what could possibly have gone wrong?) ending up in the sea after failing to stop in time on a very lengthy military runway. Three years ago I posted a piece about a young women, Janice M Harrington, who crashed the plane she was delivering to an air base during WW2.

It has long been known that females have poorer spatial awareness than females, which may account for women’s inability to reverse into parking spaces. The full conclusions of a scientific paper published in 2019:

“The results indicated that the reason why females performed not so well in large-scale spatial ability was that they were more susceptible to emotions and their parahippocampal gyrus worked less efficiently than males; females performed not so well in small-scale spatial ability because they mostly adopted the egocentric strategy and their sub-gyral also worked less efficiently than males. The two different reasons have made for gender differences in favor of males in terms of spatial ability and such gender differences have different manifestations in large-scale and small-scale spatial ability. Possible implications of the results for understanding the issue of gender differences in spatial ability are discussed.”

Lt Lily-Mae Fisher, Lt Cmdr Chris Grayson and Petty Officer Owen Green died during a recent Royal Navy training exercise. Their Merlin helicopter crashed on the edge of Dartmoor. Graham writes:

“Official reports do not specify who was handling the flight controls at the time of the accident. 

However, because the Ministry of Defence confirmed this was her final training assessment, Lieutenant Lily-Mae Fisher would standardly have been piloting the aircraft under her instructor’s supervision. Omitting this basic procedural detail is a critical omission that raises valid questions about institutional transparency.

This mirrors a well-documented historical precedent. Following the 1994 crash of U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen, the initial public narrative attributed the accident to a mechanical engine stall. A subsequent internal inquiry revealed that the primary cause was pilot error under pressure, compounded by institutional rushing to fast-track qualification standards. You can read the full context on the Kara Hultgreen Wikipedia Page.

The broader concern is the impact of political pressure and diversity targets on high-consequence operational roles. When positive discrimination is prioritised, fundamental safety baselines can be compromised, introducing severe risks to crew members and the general public.

Given that the UK military has previously admitted to instances of unlawful positive discrimination (such as the findings of the 2023 RAF recruitment inquiry) it will be interesting to see if the upcoming Defence Accident Investigation Branch (DAIB) inquiry will objectively consider qualification standards. 

While transparency is vital to maintain public trust, there will likely be immense institutional pressure to avoid uncomfortable questions.”

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