Exclusive: Calls for inquiry into alleged mis-management of air search charity
Former donors to Channel Islands Air Search (CIAS) and a sitting Guernsey States member have called on the charity to engage with an independent inquiry into why a majority of its crew left last year.
A total of 13 out of 21 crew members were either sacked or they resigned in solidarity. One other member of the crew was suspended and then was forced to retire due to age.
ITV News has exclusively seen correspondence between a former president of the Lions Club of Guernsey, who helped fund the first air search plane, and the trustees of CIAS.
In the letters, Colin Gervaise-Brazier, who says he represents three other former presidents of the club, asks the charity to take part in an inquiry in order to "provide clarity on the management of the service, its current adequacy and plans for the future".
Former Senior Pilot Mike Tidd had been with the service for 27 years when he was suspended last year for his part in the "disharmony" that broke out between some members of the crew and senior management.
While suspended, he turned 65 and was forced to retire under the regulations of volunteering for the service.
It is not the first time the charity's management has been questioned. In November 2013, its plane crashed in Jersey, no one was seriously hurt, but the crash was investigated.
The Air Accident Investigation Branch's report into the crash said it had identified a number of weaknesses within the organisation's operational procedures and practices.
Fundraising and delivering a replacement plane took more than six years, at a cost of more than two million pounds.
Internal documents seen by ITV News show disputes between some crew members and senior management arose from differing opinions on training programmes for the aircraft and fitting new search equipment.
A sitting Deputy in Guernsey's States of Deliberation has now also joined the calls for that inquiry.
Dep Chris Blin had served on the air search crew for six years before resigning last year
Channel Islands Air Search declined to be interviewed by ITV News.
However, in a statement the charity said it had "moved on" from the crew disharmony of a year ago.