Another case of death by media so the money can be saved/diverted to you know where! A pure political decision.
Four crashes in 40 years from 49 airframes, one pilot error, one maintenance error (civilian!!), one bird strike and  a war loss. The civilian loss was the first aircraft that was under a civy maintenance contract, a great way to start, so really three service losses. A bird strike, that cause has brought down bigger and more modern aircraft hardly the RAF's fault, two service losses? So pilot error, well hardly the aircraft's fault, though one could say the fault of the RAF.  Leaving a war loss........Now that I never thought I would see an aircraft withdrawn from service due to a single wartime accident.

Saying that, my dad was 15 years on on 51 Sqn as Nimrod aircrew and having just had a chat with him, he says for safety reasons, he is glad to see the back of them. The problems started just before the Falkland conflict. The installation of the air to air refuelling system was a bodge job from start to finish. The hose enters just behind the cockpit and lays on the floor before running the length of the fuselage (for all to trip over) before it goes through the floor into the bomb bay. He tells me he lost count of the number of sorties that were lost or cut short due to fuel leaks or the over powering smell of fuel "down the back". During life in a blue suit I took a jolly on a Nimrod at the back end of the 80's, still the same pipe running on the floor and to top it off, it looked like standard bowser refuel hose. All that time to sort it out, but no, and the rest is history. Still, one will make a nice addition to the static display at Duxford as they had to scrap the Comet due to corrosion.

Matt

PS.....There are whisperings that the Nimrod will not be disappearing after all. The Nimrod 2000 that never made it into service in 2000 are not moded in any way and at the time were updated structurally including systems. They have been sitting in a mothballed state ever since. Maybe all we need is an election