Rachel Fisk 3 — The HSE acts…

By Ian Marshall

Editorial Foreword

Following-on from his hard-hitting HERMES article on the Sgt Rachel Fisk affair, Ian Marshall explains the extraordinary letter sent by the Health and Safety Executive to the new CEO of British Skydiving, which some senior RAF officers still see as a future partner in the training of British Airborne Forces despite the firm’s scandalous safety record.

Marshall, who served with 2 PARA, Pathfinder Platoon and The Red Devils, also worked for twenty-seven years as a director of British Parachuting Association Ltd (BPA), which operates its skydiving and tandem jumping franchises under the trading name of British Skydiving. Ian Marshall is therefore better-placed than many to discuss the company.

British Skydiving is the trading name under which British Parachute Association Ltd operates its lucrative skydiving and tandem parachuting franchise monopoly, with the assistance of the Civil Aviation Authority quango to which British Skydiving pays an annual fee of £30,000. Any parachutists and pilots who refuse to work according to the rules laid out in CAP 660 — a CAA-BS joint publication that has been described as “a codified exercise in evasion of Health and Safety legislation — cannot conduct parachuting in British skies. 

With support from within the Armed Forces and bodies like the Civil Aviation Authority — whose management includes retired high-ranking Royal Air Force officers — British Skydiving has been able to make inroads into military parachuting. Some senior RAF officers still see British Skydiving as a future partner in the training of British Airborne and Special Forces despite the firm’s scandalous safety record and the Sgt Fisk affair.

Everything was going according to the business plan, it seems, until RAF Sgt Rachel Fisk, fitted with equipment already declared dangerous in another Service Inquiry Report, fell to her death over Weston-on-the-Green. Since then, the Health and Safety Executive has moved to reassert its Regulatory Enforcement powers over parachuting activity, as the letter reproduced below confirms. 

Ian Marshall continues… 

Most informed observers have concluded that, in their bias towards British Parachuting Association Ltd (BPA) trading as British Skydiving (BS), the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has compromised and discredited itself by acting ultra vires and more seriously, potentially unlawfully. Anyone who doesn’t realise this is paying scant attention to reality and those who fight reality, like those who fight truth, inevitably lose.  

The Parachuting Sector, for decades, has been coerced, misled and misdirected through the perpetration of a fraud [Reference: Misrepresentations Act 1967 and Fraud Act 2006], designed to promote the BS vested interests to the disadvantage of everyone else. These vested interests include the firm’s establishment of a commercial monopoly over skydiving — including the lucrative tandem skydiving racket —not just in the civil sector but also, it would seem, in the military domain. 

Those in charge of Armed Forces organisations involved in skydiving — like the RAF’s Robson Academy of Resilience, Joint Services Adventure Training and the Army Parachute Association — may continue to see BS as what it initially was: an amateur sports parachuting association set up in the 1960s to enable serving and retired officers, NCOs and other ranks to obtain affordable insurance cover for their hobby. 

Like other armed forces-related organisations — the British Legion is an example — membership was opened up to civilians deemed useful and in time, the management strata of the British Parachute Association Ltd contained far fewer military personnel. As new people arrived and acquired power, the BPA became more of a commercial franchise enterprise than a parachute club. In recent times came the rebranding as British Skydiving.

Gullibility is not confined to the Army Parachute Association, the RAF Robson Academy of Resilience and JSAT. All of the Parachute Training Organisations (PTO) and display teams, military and civilian, have the same issues except for the Pegasus Display Team (PDT). From its inception in 2017, PDT refused to submit to CAP 660, seeing it as a codified exercise in evasion of Health and Safety legislation. Simply put, submission to CAP 660 involves breaking the law. 

There is nothing codified, however, about the express hostility of senior BPA-BS management to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Writing on 8 February 2021, for instance, to BS-affiliated PTOs — prior to the Sgt Fisk incident — British Skydiving Chief Operating Officer Tony Butler described potential HSE Regulatory oversight of the Parachuting Sector as a “danger”.

This prompts an obvious question: a danger to whom? The BPA-BS website expands upon the danger paradigm: “…background work extends to much bigger issues which have, from time to time, threatened to greatly restrict skydiving activity in the UK. Examples of these threats are:

“Attempts by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to exercise control over parachute equipment standards and to investigate skydiving incidents and accidents; a move which finally resulted in negotiating a memorandum of understanding whereby the HSE relinquished their position and acknowledged the expertise of British Skydiving (then BPA) and the CAA in matters of skydiving regulation.”.

Elsewhere on the BS website, the firm baldly states that: “British Skydiving controls all aspects of skydiving on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).”. The main problem with this statement is that the Enforcing Authority in relation to parachuting and skydiving activity is not the CAA but the HSE, which was obliged to point this out in a letter dated 8 October 2024 to Robert Gibson, British Skydiving’s new Chief Executive Officer (Below). In other words, the CAA does not and never did possess the powers that they — allegedly — delegated to British Skydiving.

The Health and Safety Executive’s calmly-phrased but lethal missive to British Skydiving was likely prompted by a series of events in the wake of the death of Sgt Rachel Fisk at Weston-on-the-Green on 2 September 2021. 

The Service Inquiry Report states: “Investigation activity. Thames Valley Police (TVP) led the immediate investigation on the evening of 2 Sept 2021 and into the following day with British Skydiving in attendance. The Defence Accident Investigation Branch (DAIB), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and the RAF regional liaison officer were also in attendance on 3 Sept 2021.” [SI paragraph 1.3.29].

Hermes has been reliably informed that the post-accident investigation activity might not be accurately described. According to our sources, British Skydiving’s then-COO Tony Butler arrived on the scene in the evening of 2 September 2021 and informed Thames Valley Police that he was taking charge of the accident investigation, presenting BS Form 146a, an example of which is reproduced below.

The TVP sergeant on duty was less than impressed with BS Form 146a and demanded that Butler produce his warrant card. Unsurprisingly, as Butler was merely the employee of an amateur sports body, he was unable to produce anything of the kind. In the face of Butler’s persistent prevarications, the police sergeant ended up warning the BPA-BS director: “If you don’t **** off, I will put you in the back of that [police] car, and take you down to the station and charge you!”.

However, the Service Inquiry Report [SI paragraph 1.4.9] informs readers that “on the day after the accident, the British Skydiving investigators conducted a check of two parachute containers at JSPC(W). [SI paragraph 1.4.100] focusing on the deployment of RPC’s.”.

Hermes Technical Editor Mark Briggs CMIOSH — who is a post-graduate qualified Chartered Health and Safety Practitioner — commented: “One can only ask the question: under which Statutory provision, or law, did RAF staff at Weston-on-the-Green believe it was appropriate to engage with British Skydiving regarding a fatal incident involving on-duty service personnel on MOD premises? 

“British Skydiving have no powers or authority granted under or by virtue of any Act of Parliament or provisions of any Statutory Instrument – Regulation or Order. Nor can British Skydiving claim any function derived or devolved from the CAA, as the CAA have no jurisdiction or remit in this instance or circumstance. 

“It is reasonable therefore to suggest, upon reflection, that it may have been remiss of both Thames Valley Police and HSE not to immediately and forcefully, via arrest and charge or issuance of a Statutory Notice, curtail BPA-BS involvement in and interference with the investigation of a MOD workplace fatality.”.   

The BS Safety and Training Officer Jeff Montgomery soon appeared on ITV to state that British Skydiving was leading the investigation into the fatal accident at RAF Weston-on-the-Green. During this period, other media outlets ran with similar stories relating to investigations into the recent RAF skydiving death being led by British Skydiving. Mr Montgomery calls himself ‘Safety Jeff’ and often refers to his service with the Royal Logistics Corps when reassuring people that he knows what he is talking about. However, the BS safety performance is nothing to shout about, as the record shows. 

Interference with fatal skydiving incident investigations is nothing new for British Parachuting Association Ltd now trading as British Skydiving. Tony Butler is on record as long ago as March 2005 as stating at the coroner’s inquest into the highly suspicious death of Army Officer Cadet, Stephen Hilder: “I have investigated sixty deaths in the UK.” when establishing his credentials with the coroner.

Since Stephen Hilder’s skydiving death in July 2003 — into which the local police launched an abortive murder inquiry — there have been more than thirty further fatal incidents. With the exception of Sgt Fisk, none of these have been reported to authorities as required under current Statutory provision. 

In confirmation, a review of the Statutory Reporting system database was conducted and only one skydiving-related incident was identified. This injury was reported by a civilian Parachute Training Organisation in Oxfordshire three years ago.    

The police murder inquiry into Stephen Hilder’s death was hindered by coercion of witnesses and tampering with evidence at the PTO where Hilder died after his reserve risers and rigging lines were cut. The young officer cadet had been pushing for the British Parachute Association to committee more money to safety and introduce rules and practices before he died. 

The HSE inspector tasked with the Rachel Fisk case file eventually found it necessary to rebuke British Skydiving representatives, telling them to “shut up” and to cease interfering with an Enforcing Authority’s official investigation. Unabashed, British Skydiving distributed its own “interim report following the fatal accident of Rachel Fisk” whilst, of course, offering deepest condolences to Sgt Fisk’s family and friends. 

Not long after publication of the BS Interim Report into the Fisk death, attendees at a meeting between British Skydiving and its Parachute Training Organisation affiliates informed Hermes that the Vice-Chair of BS Council Mark Bayada had stated: “BS are the regulator – we don’t want HSE involved in skydiving.”.

Bayada is also the Chief Operating Officer of the Army Parachuting Association. More recently, in an email on July 30 2024 justifying APA Statutory contraventions, Bayada wrote: “We […] have to follow the British Skydiving operations manual in full. I have no authority to deviate and all the APA’s assurances and insurance are based on the fact that we are a British Skydiving-affiliated PTO and MUST adhere to the operations manual.”.  

Even when such adherence to the British Skydiving manual means breaking the law, it seems. Such astounding statements by British Skydiving representatives would appear to be standard practice. Writing on 8 February 2021 to BS-affiliated PTOs — prior to the Sgt Fisk incident — BS COO Tony Butler described potential HSE Regulatory oversight of the Parachuting Sector as a “danger”.

This prompts an obvious question: a danger to whom? The British Skydiving website expands upon the danger paradigm: “…background work extends to much bigger issues which have, from time to time, threatened to greatly restrict skydiving activity in the UK. Examples of these threats are:

“Attempts by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to exercise control over parachute equipment standards and to investigate skydiving incidents and accidents; a move which finally resulted in negotiating a memorandum of understanding whereby the HSE relinquished their position and acknowledged the expertise of British Skydiving (then BPA) and the CAA in matters of skydiving regulation.”.

HSE officials could find no trace of any such memorandum of understanding confirming that the Inspectorate, a Crown body had handed over Regulatory responsibility for the safety of people at work to an unqualified quango even less-qualified ‘appointed person’ – an amateur sports association – that has presided over a scandalous toll of death and injury amongst not just its members but members of the public and military victims. Unless one counts Stephen Hilder, who fell to his death with cut risers and rigging lines after agitating for better safety standards. Elsewhere on the BS website, the prevarication is developed further: “British Skydiving controls all aspects of skydiving on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).”. 

Mark Briggs CMIOSH — who first wrote about the Sgt Fisk case for Hermes — said: “Regarding Mark Bayada’s absurd statement that the APA ‘must’ as a British Skydiving-affiliated PTO adhere to the British Skydiving operations manual, I would suggest in the first instance that any reasonable observer would consider Bayada as having a significant conflict of interest between the Army Parachute Association — an MoD-owned limited company — and the British Parachute Association Ltd. 

“Secondly, it is incumbent upon Bayada to ensure that he is adequately informed or appropriately advised. Even the most rudimentary level of due diligence would indicate that the only relevant ‘must’ in play here is the ‘must’ dictated by compliance with Statutory legislation, and the law. None of the CAA-BS spurious rules, as they relate to parachuting activity, are Statutory provisions despite the assertions of British Skydiving officials and, more worryingly, some senior Armed Forces officers and members of their commands. The BS operations manual constitutes no form of dispensation, derogation or exemption from application of legislation and the law. 

“All MOD entities like the APA must conduct parachuting activities – military or otherwise – in accordance with the Health and Safety at Work Act, as established in the MOD-HSE-MOU and Secretary of State’s policy, not with the unwarranted and highly questionable rules presented as formal code by an amateur sports body that seems to enjoy the unlimited protection of the CAA for an annual fee of £30,000.”. 

Everything had been a bit quiet in the wake of the publication of the Service Inquiry Report into Sgt Fisk’s death. Then it emerged that British Skydiving had been involved in a confrontation with Local Authority Enforcement over a skydiving death at the BS-affiliated PTO Sky-High Skydiving in County Durham. 

British Skydiving employees reportedly arrived at Shotton Airfield near Peterlee, where Sky-High Skydiving is based, and presented Durham Police with BS Form 146a in line with the firm’s modus operandi. 

Hermes understands that this fatal accident involving an employee at work was not reported to Authorities as required by RIDDOR. Consequently, several days passed before the Local Authority was alerted to the fatality. 

According to our sources, the Senior Environmental Health Officer (EHO) from Durham County Council had to threaten the British Skydiving officials with enforcement action in order to make them bring back vital evidence that should not have been removed from the scene under the provisions of The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Our sources say that British Skydiving has tried formally to claim jurisdiction and statutory powers to investigate parachuting accidents. 

At a hearing in September 2024, the Senior EHO leading the Durham County Council investigation informed the coroner that main victim’s canopy was deployed but was twisted, that his reserve did not deploy properly and that further investigation was necessary. The hearing was adjourned until January 14 2025.

National news outlets reported that Durham County Council is seeking independent analysis of the altimeter, GoPro camera footage and other equipment. Undoubtedly, the current situation with DCC and circumstances associated with the Sgt Fisk investigation are likely to have precipitated the HSE intervention move to clip British Skydiving’s wings.

After Durham County Council made enquiries about the BS assertions with the Health and Safety Executive, the HSE took the step of writing to British Skydiving’s new CEO Robert Wilson to warn him that his organisation has no formal powers, a warning that any Armed Forces officers rendering themselves or their personnel subordinate in any way to British Skydiving would do well to note. So would the Civil Aviation Authority.

To facilitate clear understanding on the part of anyone involved in military or other forms of MOD sponsored parachuting who has either promoted, accepted or been hindered by this falsehood that the CAA and BS are in charge of military and civil parachuting and skydiving, HSE are now asserting their authority as the National Health and Safety Regulator. Or otherwise to put it simply, the CAA and BS, the co-authors of CAP 660, have been conning everyone for years. 

As for the Civil Aviation Authority, which has allowed people to believe it to be the parachuting regulatory authority, its management sees nothing wrong with British Skydiving’s behaviour and the firm’s flagrant evasion of Health and Safety legislation, according to this response from the office of the Chair and Chief Executive in 2021.

As Mark Briggs remarked, the £30,000 the CAA receives each year from British Skydiving, as British Parachute Association Ltd now calls itself, seems to buy unlimited protection. The then-CEO, Richard Moriarty, has since been replaced by Mr Rob Bishton but the then-Chair remains in place. He is former Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Hillier KCB CBE DFC ADC MA.

In fairness to Sir Stephen, he was probably not shown this response to the questions about British Parachute Association Ltd’s probity before it was sent out jointly in his name but it could nonetheless be taken as an indication that Sir Stephen does not disapprove of British Skydiving’s behaviour and sees the firm as a fit and proper partner for the RAF which he commanded.

Of course, this email exchange occurred before an RAF Sergeant and Parachute Jump Instructor died on duty because her commanders had adopted British Skydiving safety standards as laid down in CAP 660 rather than keeping to the more stringent standards of required under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and its associated Statutory Instruments.

Sgt Rachel Fisk is simply one of the ninety-plus victims we know about — and that is without taking into account the numerous life-changing injuries suffered by skydivers on the BS-CAA watch — but unless the Ministry of Defence wishes to see other military victims, action should be taken to ensure that British Skydiving has no further involvement of any kind with any military or military-sponsored parachuting activities. 

Hermes Technical Editor Mark Briggs said: The letter from the HSE to the British Skydiving CEO isn’t the only HSE correspondence passed to Hermes. The others will be discussed in future articles because this is all highly relevant to the problems affecting British Airborne and Special Forces training and futures, including the UK’s NATO commitment to provide a fully trained, combat-ready airborne and parachute brigade.”.

As this situation unfolds, the fallout in the wake of Sgt Fisk’s death has the potential to get very interesting, very quickly, and no doubt, to become very uncomfortable for quite a few people — military and civilian alike. One thing is certain: British Skydiving did not act alone in persuading Sgt Fisk’s commanders that they were the CAA-appointed regulator; others colluded and conspired to evade Health and Safety legislation over a sustained period of time. The problem for them all is that the CAA was never the parachuting regulator to begin with.