Extra irony is added to this story by the fact that aid agencies are currently scouring the world for privately owned military-grade helicopters
for 'relief efforts' in Myanmar.
A Chinook is the perfect vehicle for such a efferts... if only certified for civilian use!!

Daniel Hall, Morpeth, northumberland

David H, Andover: you only need that if you're modifying the code. If you're adding kit then why modify? If it's not bust, don't fix it. Also, in OOA/OOD design you only ever add, not modify. As most avionics code is written in Ada you shouldn't have to touch it.

Bry Barnes, Somerset, Uk

Yet further proof, if proof were needed, that this Government couldn't manage a corner shop on half day closing ...

Who's to blame? Brown/Blair or Des Browne/Geoff Hoon?

All of them, I say. They should sack themselves, NOW !

Do you think Mrs Thatcher would of allowed this? I think not.

Keith, Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Attn MoD - there's an ad for Chinooks on e-bay on the bottom of this page, maybe we should procure some more, I'm sure they don't work and are a waste of money -so just what you wanted, eh? Presumably we are dropping cluster bombs (lol) to save money?
btw couldn't we slim down MoD to save a few £bn

Matt, london, uk

It is standard in aerospace contracts for the source code to be supplied and reviewed otherwise the product cannot be approved. Read DO178B, etc... Those claiming otherwise have obviously never been involved in any aerospace projects.

David H, Andover, UK

To 'quote' John Bird, actually £500m is quite cheap for a failed defence project...

Mike Poulsen, Reading, Berkshire

Ian, your right, you can't trust the Yanks, so dump the special relationship that has allowed you to get by with a hollow military for decades(remember the Falklins, barely won that one) and spend the money on all those social programs you Brits love sooo much. Go with the EU, they've got your back

Paul, Oakland, USA

who will be held responsible? Expect the answer to be 'no one'.

Mike, Gravesend, England

Do these MOD decision makers come from the same stock as the "old farts" of the RFU? Time to clear the deck, and look after the soldiers who lay their lives to serve our country.

V Tan, London,

but ifthe cost of repairing them is the same as buying new ones, more or less as can sell old ones too, then ywhy repair them?

stuart, Fareham, uk

Just another example of the cavalier attitude many incompetent government departments have to wasting taxpayer's money. Do you think heads will roll over this fiasco? Promotion for the individuals involved is more likely. The NAO has no teeth - it should have and then let it bite hard!

Oxford Don, Oxford, UK

The saddest thing about this whole debacle is that (a) It is now commonplace and (b) As ever no one is accountable.

If politicians had ever done a days work and generated their built their own business from scratch they would be less keen to waste taxpayers money on such a huge scale.

Mike, Keswick,

Well done labour! Total incompetence.

Tim, Sherborne, England

That's what you get from the UK's 'Health and Safety' culture of madness.

Chris, London,

Military procurement is very complex and technical, not a project for incompetent senior officers and civil servants who are in those positions for a short term. Promotion and pensions are higher on agendas than the overall capability of the Armed Forces. The "Colonel"

C, Alps, Europe

well said mr lance grundy... bravo

peter jones, moscow,

Actually the waste is nearer £1.5 billion, once purchase price, storage and upgrade costs are all included.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

No-one buying IT driven products expects access to the source code, which may not even be owned by Boeing. The fault is with the MOD for failing to specify the requirement. Still, it should be possible to have the software changed by the developer once the buyer knows what it wants. What idiots!

David, Oxford,

"Britain’s strict airworthiness criteria. "

Yeah, right. That must be the same criteria that allows ageing, decrepit Nimrods fall out of the sky.

Lance Grundy, Liverpool, Great Britain

Extra night vision for the older chinooks doesnt cost millions, a couple of pairs of night vision goggles will do.

Can someone please ask when the MOD will buy more brand new Chinooks as Australia just did? It can't be that difficult surely?

john, london,

The problem is that MoD cannot negotiate contracts. They are utterly useless. How about we give the money directly to the 'End-User' and let them place the contracts with suppliers, like Boeing? It'll save us a lot of time, money and effort and the guys'll get what they want. No more MoD as well.

Bry Barnes, Somerset, Uk

Where do accusations of US "betrayal" come from? The entity involved here is not the US gov't, but a private company. And if a contract was drawn up that didn't include the purchase of sensitive, proprietary source codes, then absent a new contract, the MoD simply has no right to those codes.

Johnny, London, UK

In an attempt to prevent similar 'gold-plated cock ups' we should name & shame the RAF Officers and senior civil servants responsible. All too often these events are swept under the political carpet to protect careers and pensions. They must be made responsible for their decisions and sacked.

Dicken, Farnborough, UK

I'm outraged by the wastefulness of this. Why can't we send these back to the US for a refund, if they are short they would surely be glad to get them back? I'd like to think a different govt would be less dozy, but no doubt it would be the same losers making the decisions at MOD level.

Bev, Bucks, UK

The Govt should tell Boeing that unless the codes are made available within a given timeframe Boeing will get no further orders from the British Government. Our great friend and ally George Bush should be told that if the Chinooks cannot be deployed because of Boeing we will pull out of Afghanistan.

Donna Walker, Effingham, England

Will the revised purchase include wheels in the specification?

geoffrey swain, Almancil, Portugal

Whoever messed up on the original contract is sure to have been promoted. Why can we never find out who is responsible for such gross incompetence in spending taxpayers' money?

Peter, Cambridge,

this is why we do not need government in charge of anything important. boeing builds at a certain speed. if we're not happy with that we don't source from them. easy as that. they aren't the sole supplier.

Mike, Wales.,

There is nothing wrong with these new aircraft. The Americans operate identical models.

There is NO need to review the source code of the software - they can simply be flight tested like any other aircraft, before service acceptance.

Get them airbourne NOW and stop this nonsense and waste.

James Dowling, London, UK

Will any Minister be held accountable? Of course not, they will side step that one yet if a CEO of a company commited the same crime of wasting company money he would be fired. It sums up everything this government stands for and I wander who got the back hander on this deal!

Neil, almere, holland

So, the audit revealed this as “one of the most incompetent procurements of all time,” yet some of you use this as an excuse to complain about Boeing and even the whole US for it. How British. It looks like the fault lies more with MOD's incompetent procurement process, not Boeing's helicopters.

Paul Woodside, San Jose, California

It's normal. If they were given the task to open a coffee stall they would forget to order the coffee.

Replicate this across the whole civil service and there would be enough money wasted to run a small country, and yet all we (the electorate) do is moan, and complain about our taxes.

Norman West, Truro, Cornwall

Simon from Birmingham has the answer - let's pull out of Iraq until Bush sorts this out or refunds our money. In the meantime, I would like to know about the career progression of the pratt behind this procurement. No doubt he has been promoted, knighted, and is now on an infaltion-proofed pension!

David, London, UK

No to the JSF deal.

A navy version of the Eurofighter would do nicely.

Bill Bird, Wallasey, UK

"The sky had to be cloudless and the pilots would have to operate from at least 500ft" - well that sounds responsible - about as responsible as the decision made over the nimrods.
but what will happen to those responsible for this waste? nothing, maybe a gong and early retirement

Phil Barnes, preston, england

Hmmm the chinooks are in a hangar in the UK for seven years?
And there is a problem with codes?
Just simply take them? No?

"specialists were unable to check whether the adapted helicopters passed Britain’s strict airworthiness criteria"
They were going to fly them in Afghanistan.....

Morton, Praha, Cezh Rep.

This is why we can't trust lawyers - they are having much too much adverse influence on British political, social and economic life - and at a very high cost.

andy, london,

Like some of the other correspondents I share some of their concerns about the balance in Britain's so called special relationship with the USA. However, if any of them think, like 'Ian' of 'Tokyo, Japan,' that we are any better off trusting many of our 'European allies,' they should think again.

Ali D., St Helier, JERSEY

Check around and see what Blair forgot to sell to the Carlyle Grope...then make your own damm helicopters. For unauthorized system code revisions, the Chinese are first class at reasonable rate, but then they're booked solid.

Linda Dial, Calgary, AB

Should have sold them back to the americans for a premium
On another note, if they are good enough for the US army- maybe OK for the MoD to trust for the British Army?

chetas, Croydon, UK

"Boeing was reluctant to hand over the codes." Hopefully, this will make us reluctant to fight any further futile US wars.

Janet, London,

To answer GW and Jon Livesy etc. the main reason US is unwilling to handover source code is probably more to do with strict export control regulations whereby individual employees can go to prison for releasing certain technologies to "foreign nations without approval"

paul h, worcester,

There must be some unexplained issue regarding the
avionics software source codes. There is also a source
code issue with JSF in regards to the UK.
Yes, the yanks can't be trusted, because we intentionally desire to anger UK customer and jeapordise future contracts.

Steve, Bakersfield, USA

I wouldn't give the code over either if there was something in it that I didn't want you to see. Like some code that allows them to disable the helicopter if they don't want you to use it.

Tim, Toronto,

I sometimes wonder why we think the US is an ally?

David, Dubai, UAE

Britain should just say, 'If we don't have the codes, we can't keep our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US can deal with it on thier own'.

It's not like it's a new thing for the US to betray it's allies even during wartime.

Simon, Birmingham, UK

Classically British...a helicopter that works day in and day out for the U.S. is just not good enough.

Perhaps you can have landrover build you a helicopter to suit your specifications, Sorry i meant Tata...Or MG, oh i meant the Chinese.

Cheers.

boris, stamford, usa

Why didn't the MOD employ some of the very highly skilled UK hacker community to activate the software without troubling our 'allies' with the details?

Alvin Zest, Beverley Hills, USA

Simple. The MOD refuse to endorse any future Boeing projects or spend any money on future Boeing products until Boeing help fix the MOD's mistake.

As for the source code, we're England not some third world nuke brandishing nutters.

Luke Faichney, Robin Hood's Bay, England

1/2 billion wasted? Who gives a damn - "who'' meaning politicians – it is public money. Northern Rock was (saved) by wasting another 24 billion, who gave a damn, it was public money. But when it comes to MPs declaring their expenses, they just freak out; hypocrites.

Saleh Mohammad, London, United Kingdom

As a Brit - this looks like more of a screw up by us than by the Americans. Can't we negotiate contracts? Can't we have sorted this out in 7 years? Even if the original use wasn't possible, surely someone could have had some use out of them?
Amazing. Quite amazing.

Martin Owen, Shalimar, USA

And we're about to spend billions of pounds on F-35 fighters for the Royal Navy. Any chance of getting source code for them? I seem to remember that access to the code has still not been agreed.
Best to play safe and ditch the F-35's, and buy French Rafael's instead. Ditch the MOD too!

Dave Morgan, Portree, Scotland

Why on earth were Boeing "reluctant to hand over the codes"?

GW, London, England

The key in this story is the comment that Boeing would not supply source code. This highlights a risk that attends every defence purchase from the US, where we are not buying from the US Government - as we might imagine - but from a private company that keeps secrets in order to avoid competition.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/USA

Its all part of the "special relationship"!

Gordon Lonsdale , Northampton, uk

This is why we need to be part of Europe and build these things ourselves. You cannot trust the yanks.

ian, tokyo, Japan