When DCI McDonald lets go of the line while attempting to keep the balloon from drifting away, the end of the line is at least six feet off the ground. When she reaches up to grab it again, the end is lying on the ground.
It is said that 'Captain' Elkins has however many hundreds of hours of flying experience on gliders and balloons (of course the skills required for those two types of aircraft are utterly different) and so they just allowed him to take a balloon, plus passengers, totally unsupervised.
This simply would not happen! No matter how experienced a pilot claims to be, no aviation business would ever allow that person unsupervised command without at least one trial flight to demonstrate his/her fundamental competence. People have been known to 'borrow' or forge licences and log-books! In any case, their insurance would absolutely insist upon a proper programme of supervision before an aircraft is handed over to someone from outside the company.
The carabiner gives way when they are at 2350ft altitude, and supposedly in level flight. But if it is not adequate to support the weight on board, it would yield at take-off, when the force on it would be at its greatest.
At 0:53, the crew reports a northwesterly wind.
At 6:30, a copper reports the balloon took off from a location southeast of where it crashed.
Winds are named for the direction they blow from. The two locations are reversed.
Aviation incidents are investigated by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch and not by the Air incident Investigation Agency.
The scenes of crime photographs laid out on the table show the broken D ring lying on the grass but it was actually produced out of a pocket during an interview.
That's not the broken D-ring (the defective carabiner that was substituted in the sabotage), that's a photo of one of the other three carabiners that also began to deform because those three remaining carabiners could barely hold the weight without the fourth carabiner. The carabiner that snapped into two pieces landed inside the basket; Mick Elkins then picked the pieces up and put them in his pocket while they were still up in the air.
That's not the broken D-ring (the defective carabiner that was substituted in the sabotage), that's a photo of one of the other three carabiners that also began to deform because those three remaining carabiners could barely hold the weight without the fourth carabiner. The carabiner that snapped into two pieces landed inside the basket; Mick Elkins then picked the pieces up and put them in his pocket while they were still up in the air.
When DS Dodds is looking through the old books at the library there are at least 3 typos... in the middle of the paragraph on Elmwood there is a duplicate word and an unnecessary comma (... often seen in in the company of, Malcolm...). On the next page about Somner the word 'interesting' is spelt 'intresting'.
Near the beginning of the episode, DC Craig mentions that the victim is Frankie Marsh, aged 58. Then halfway the episode, DC Paciorkowski mentions that in 1984, Frankie was a 19 year old drummer in London. If Frankie was 19 years old in 1984, then he'd be 58 years old in 2023. But the episode takes place in 2020 and not in 2023; so at least one of the constables must have made an incorrect statement.