Shock new figures have revealed that almost a quarter of aircraft maintenance posts at RAF Lossiemouth have been left vacant.
Fresh safety concerns were raised last night after it emerged that the Moray base has the highest proportion of unfilled “tradesmen” posts of all the RAF’s bases.
The shortfall was made even more stark as defence chiefs confirmed they had also axed almost half of the posts at Lossiemouth in just the last three years.
Figures for April 2011 show that there were 482 of the tradesmen posts at the base, with 27 of them vacant – a 5.6% shortfall.
Last month, there were just 252 of the posts left at RAF Lossiemouth – and 59 were not filled.
Moray MP Angus Robertson, who obtained the figures using parliamentary questions, branded the 23.4% gap “shocking”.
The data shows that 11.8% of aircraft tradesmen posts are unfilled across the 10 UK RAF bases, with Lossiemouth having the biggest proportion of vacancies.
There was also a 6.7% gap in RAF engineering posts, including one vacancy out of the nine required at Lossiemouth.
Defence commentator and analyst Tim Ripley sounded a note of caution on the high Lossiemouth figures, pointing out that it was currently being transformed from a Tornado base to a new home for more advanced Typhoon squadrons.
“The reason they are running down the people is because they are running down the aircraft,” he said.
However, a recent report by the Military Aviation Authority (MAA) highlighted a “shortfall” of suitably qualified and experienced personnel in the air force.
It said that while the situation persisted, “air safety is being undermined” by work that is left incomplete, safety modification work not being progressed, poor supervision, and “inappropriate normalisation of low standards and behaviours”.
Mr Robertson, SNP defence spokesman, said: “These figures are shocking. The recent MAA annual report said there were chronic shortages and that safety is being undermined.
“It is bad enough that Westminster is making huge cuts in the numbers of these posts – leading to the position that shortages are at an historic all-time high.”
An RAF spokeswoman said: “These figures represent a brief snapshot during which new aircraft entered service, fleets increased in size with posts being created ahead of needing to be filled and while we reduced our overall number of RAF personnel.
“It is inevitable this would temporarily affect our overall figures but we still have all the people we need to carry out all operational taskings safely.”
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