Qinetiq boss resigns after Nimrod report
Updated on 29 October 2009
The chief executive of the defence research firm Qinetiq has resigned, hours after the firm was criticised by the official report into an RAF Nimrod crash which claimed 14 lives.
Graham Love, who ran the company for four years, is departing at the end of the month.
An official inquiry said yesterday that Qinetiq mast bear some of the blame mistakes that led to the crash in Afghanistan in 2006.
Channel 4 News correspondent Julian Rush said that the report, published yesterday, was one of the most damning reports he had ever seen.
"10 people were named in it, including two people from Qinetiq - although not Graham Love."
"He wasn't named in the report but he was chief executive officer of the company while this work was going on and while this review was being carried out."
Julian Rush continued: "Qinetiq says that his departure in November has absolutely nothing to do with this, that they have been planning the succession within the company for some considerable time.
"The report does say that Qinetiq bears a share of the responsibility for the Nimrod story. They were the independent advisers to British Aerospace, BAE Systems, who actually carried out this safety case review - this idea of doing a report that would prove and identify the hazards that would show what the problems might be on the aircraft, to prove that it was safe to fly.
"The people at the Ministry of Defence are still there - moved to staff posts, although one civilian worker has since left the MoD. Two other senior officers at the MoD have now retired.
"Within BAE Systems, as far as we understand it, all the people who... the three people named in the report there, they are still with the company.
"And the two people at Qinetiq who are named in the report, they too are still with the company there."
