Erebus 25 years on
Whispering "T" Jet
You are correct prospector when you say the OFFICIAL report (Chippendale) has never been challenged (in a court of law). However, because of the “captain’s decision to make a VMC descent below the specified minimum safety height while north of McMurdo.” conclusion by Chippendale and subsequent controversy, resulted in the Royal Commission of Inquiry, and its much different assessment of the true cause.
Have you got the energy to start a new thread to debate the OFFICIAL report? Count me in!
Have you got the energy to start a new thread to debate the OFFICIAL report? Count me in!
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In the event that that anyone doubts that the AINS was not to be used as Captain Collins used it, note the following:
"Like any good pilot, Collins would certainly have made up his mind that unless visual conditions were good, there was no way he would take the aircraft below Minimum Safe Altitude of 16000 feet. MSA constitutes a platform for pilots. Once below it they leave behind the self-sufficiency of the inertial navigation system and commit themselves once more to guidance from aids on mother earth, and to visual flying - 'eyeballing' it in pilot jargon."
That's from p119 of Impact Erebus by Gordon Vette. (He then goes no to suggest that the captain did not know about sector white-out, conveniently ignoring the CVR, Collins years in the RNZAF at Wigram, and the visit he and Lucas made to Operation Deep Freeze a few weeks before the flight.)
"Like any good pilot, Collins would certainly have made up his mind that unless visual conditions were good, there was no way he would take the aircraft below Minimum Safe Altitude of 16000 feet. MSA constitutes a platform for pilots. Once below it they leave behind the self-sufficiency of the inertial navigation system and commit themselves once more to guidance from aids on mother earth, and to visual flying - 'eyeballing' it in pilot jargon."
That's from p119 of Impact Erebus by Gordon Vette. (He then goes no to suggest that the captain did not know about sector white-out, conveniently ignoring the CVR, Collins years in the RNZAF at Wigram, and the visit he and Lucas made to Operation Deep Freeze a few weeks before the flight.)
We're going around and around in circles again just like we did a few years ago, no middle ground has been reached yet again so I'm going to bow out. Maybe in 2021 the thread will work its way to the top again as it tends to do and we will do it all again. I imagine that these conversations have value because they will be able to be accessed by people wanting to know more about the event and how people in our time viewed it.
Until then, if you are still in command of an airliner as I suspect many of us are, take heed of the lessons , remember that those paid to support your flight are human and make mistakes just like you do, and that the rules are there to protect you from their mistakes and yours. Unless there is a good reason, stick to them for your passengers sake.
Thanks for the conversation.
Until then, if you are still in command of an airliner as I suspect many of us are, take heed of the lessons , remember that those paid to support your flight are human and make mistakes just like you do, and that the rules are there to protect you from their mistakes and yours. Unless there is a good reason, stick to them for your passengers sake.
Thanks for the conversation.
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Quote framer....Until then, if you are still in command of an airliner as I suspect many of us are, take heed of the lessons ,
Well mate,reading this debate on a daily basis ,like many ,has been an enlightening experience indeed.The willingness of the major debaters to explore every word,sentence and quote has also been enlightening.I just hope,like you have stated,I've learned something and it will serve me in a time and day.
Well mate,reading this debate on a daily basis ,like many ,has been an enlightening experience indeed.The willingness of the major debaters to explore every word,sentence and quote has also been enlightening.I just hope,like you have stated,I've learned something and it will serve me in a time and day.
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Thanks for that Pakehaboy and framer, I have been out of the drivers seat for a few years now, and been following this thread for a number of years.
To see somebody getting involved and seeing and appreciating the many different views, and hopefully giving some thought to all that has been written makes all the angst worth while.
Must admit I have had to convince myself to "not blow my cool" a few times.
To see somebody getting involved and seeing and appreciating the many different views, and hopefully giving some thought to all that has been written makes all the angst worth while.
Must admit I have had to convince myself to "not blow my cool" a few times.
Whispering "T" Jet
no middle ground has been reached yet again
I see this impasse resulting from the following:
At the time of this accident, Human Factors and Crew Resource Management training was in it's infancy.
Air New Zealand, Chippendale and the NZ Government went very hard at playing the "pilot error" card. This resulted in the inevitable and anticipated reaction from ALPANZ. The public were alerted to document shredding, subjected to allusive/vague interviews by Morrie Davis and Robert Muldoon and the final humiliation to both, the revelation of a route change, by the navigation department, taking the aircraft directly over Erebus without informing the crew.
Kiwis, like Aussies, don't like being deceived especially by governments. Public backlash was swift and savage against Air NZ and Muldoon's government.
Enter Muldoon's olive branch. An independent royal Commission of Inquiry, Justice Peter Mahon residing. The government did not like the Mahon findings. Enter the UK Privy Council court of Appeal. Public saw it for what it was and again, public backlash.
There was never a definitive conclusion to this tragedy. Mahon supporters believe he got it right, Air NZ/ Government thought they got it right.
Who will come up with any new evidence to disprove the Mahon/Chippendale arguments? I don't know, but I do know until this happens, we shall all be back here again 4 to 5 years debating the same old,same old.
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There was never a definitive conclusion to this tragedy. Mahon supporters believe he got it right, Air NZ/ Government thought they got it right.
Who will come up with any new evidence to disprove the Mahon/Chippendale arguments? I don't know, but I do know until this happens, we shall all be back here again 4 to 5 years debating the same old,same old.
Who will come up with any new evidence to disprove the Mahon/Chippendale arguments? I don't know, but I do know until this happens, we shall all be back here again 4 to 5 years debating the same old,same old.
Without getting into the relative merits of what they said yet again, this was always going to be too big for Chippindale, and setting up the Royal Commission of Enquiry as a one-man band was just plain dumb. Leaving a legacy of......... us debating it nearly 40 years later.
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Despite the location, there was probably more evidence about this accident than any other. They even managed to recover the units that the waypoints were manually punched into. They were analysed in the US and they were able to determine that the waypoints entered were those on the flight plan.
The task was not too great for a High Court judge. He had a year, with nothing else to do. Go and read some other High Court judgments. Many of them are much more complicated. The problem was that Mahon misinterpreted some evidence, ignored other relevant evidence, and was deliberately misled by the union, particularly as regards the critical evidence of Captain Simpson. He then decided to finish his report with the "orchestrated litany of lies", which was extremely foolish and consistent with someone suffering from a neurological condition. Note that he died two years later of a head tumour.
The task was not too great for a High Court judge. He had a year, with nothing else to do. Go and read some other High Court judgments. Many of them are much more complicated. The problem was that Mahon misinterpreted some evidence, ignored other relevant evidence, and was deliberately misled by the union, particularly as regards the critical evidence of Captain Simpson. He then decided to finish his report with the "orchestrated litany of lies", which was extremely foolish and consistent with someone suffering from a neurological condition. Note that he died two years later of a head tumour.
Whispering "T" Jet
I was the other way PapaHotel6. I was a very junior F/O at the time and thought it had to be pilot error. I had no training in HF/CRM and thought I knew it all. Then reports of cover ups, documents being shredded, documents being removed from pilot's homes and I started to think "something doesn't smell right in downtown Auckland". Mahon got to the bottom of it and more.
The rest is history and until some new evidence surfaces, I will stick with the Mahon report. Have a Merry Christmas.
The rest is history and until some new evidence surfaces, I will stick with the Mahon report. Have a Merry Christmas.
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I was the other way PapaHotel6. I was a very junior F/O at the time and thought it had to be pilot error. I had no training in HF/CRM and thought I knew it all.
Then reports of cover ups, documents being shredded, documents being removed from pilot's homes and I started to think "something doesn't smell right in downtown Auckland". Mahon got to the bottom of it and more.
Have a Merry Christmas.
Last edited by PapaHotel6; 25th Jun 2016 at 02:07.
the "orchestrated litany of lies", which was extremely foolish and consistent with someone suffering from a neurological condition
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Nay, he made an astute observation, but a politically incorrect one. You can only withstand a certain amount of BS, and to say so doesn't infer anything neurological. In saying it, he likely knew the outcome.
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Two examples of what a dope Mahon was: (1) Of the most significant lines in the CVR transcript was "Very hard to tell the difference between the cloud and the ice." That line was never referred to in the report, or even the subsequent book.
(2) Faced with indisputable evidence that the waypoint conveyed at the briefing was at McMurdo Station, Mahon had this to say: "The pictorial representations showing the observers that the flight path was down McMurdo Sound and these displays would, not unnaturally, take precedence over the spoken words indicating a direct track from Cape Hallett to McMurdo Station and indicating the NDB co-ordinations as the destination waypoint." (p60)
There are so many mistakes in that one single paragraph that I'm only going to identify the worst, which is that pilots would silently sit through a briefing, receive contradictory information, and then make there own decision about which would "take precedence." Ian Gemmell was right: Mahon was an idiot.
(2) Faced with indisputable evidence that the waypoint conveyed at the briefing was at McMurdo Station, Mahon had this to say: "The pictorial representations showing the observers that the flight path was down McMurdo Sound and these displays would, not unnaturally, take precedence over the spoken words indicating a direct track from Cape Hallett to McMurdo Station and indicating the NDB co-ordinations as the destination waypoint." (p60)
There are so many mistakes in that one single paragraph that I'm only going to identify the worst, which is that pilots would silently sit through a briefing, receive contradictory information, and then make there own decision about which would "take precedence." Ian Gemmell was right: Mahon was an idiot.
Mahon's problem was he went beyond his remit. It does not make his observations incorrect re the airline conduct during his commission, he just wasn't supposed to say what he said.
See - The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Decisions
The Honourable Thomas Peter Thomas Mahon v Air New Zealand Limited and Others (New Zealand) [1983] UKPC 29 (20 October 1983)
Wish you'd stick to the facts ampan. Chippendale said,
See - The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Decisions
The Honourable Thomas Peter Thomas Mahon v Air New Zealand Limited and Others (New Zealand) [1983] UKPC 29 (20 October 1983)
Faced with indisputable evidence that the waypoint conveyed at the briefing was at McMurdo Station, Mahon had this to say: "The pictorial representations showing the observers that the flight path was down McMurdo Sound and these displays would, not unnaturally, take precedence over the spoken words indicating a direct track from Cape Hallett to McMurdo Station and indicating the NDB co-ordinations as the destination waypoint.
Although 2 of the pilots were shown a printout of the erroneous computer flight plan in advance of the actual flight they were not shown on a topographical map that the intended tack passed almost directly over the highest point in the area, Mt Erebus (12450 feet). Charts were carried in the aircraft on the day of the flight but these were very small scale (the largest scale was 1:3,000,000 with 1:1,000,000 insert of Ross Island) and not available to the crew until the final pre-flight dispatch planning on the morning of the departure. The 3 “maps” of the area between Cape Hallett and McMurdo which were used in the route qualification briefing all showed a track located clear of high ground and passing to the true west of the mountains as did one of he maps issued on the day of the flight. In fact the flight planned route passed to the east over very high ground instead of over the sea level ice shelf as portrayed on the briefing “maps”. One track and distance diagram issued at the route qualification briefing showed that the track from Cape Hallett was direct to the McMurdo TACAN but this did not show the location of any topographical feature.
Whispering "T" Jet
I wouldn't be putting to much credence in what Ian Gemmell "said"...........
The NZ government has apologised twice for the Erebus disaster and appointed Mahon in 1985 as Commissioner of Inquiry into the 1984 Queen Street riot. He wrote an award winning book about the disaster and that book won the New Zealand Book Awards prize for non fiction in 1985.
How are we going Captain Gemmell? Are we a bit wreckless with the truth in your assessment of Justice Peter Mahon?
ampan likes his poetic licence when it comes to facts megan.
The NZ government has apologised twice for the Erebus disaster and appointed Mahon in 1985 as Commissioner of Inquiry into the 1984 Queen Street riot. He wrote an award winning book about the disaster and that book won the New Zealand Book Awards prize for non fiction in 1985.
How are we going Captain Gemmell? Are we a bit wreckless with the truth in your assessment of Justice Peter Mahon?
ampan likes his poetic licence when it comes to facts megan.
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The point is that Mahon believed that the information presented at the briefing was contradictory. If so, what would have happened? At least one of the pilots would have questioned the briefing officer, particularly Captain Simpson, a qualified navigator. No pilot would sit there in silence and take their pick, yet according to Mahon, that's what happened. Nothing said by Chippendale changes any of that.
The evidence given by Captain Wilson and by Captain Johnson as to the verbal content of the RCU briefing was not accepted by the majority of the pilots who attended the briefings. Indeed, there was one pilot who said that upon listening to the evidence given before the Commission in relation to the briefing he had attended, he was led to wonder whether he had been at the same briefing.
More airline obfuscation of reality? Orchestrated litany of lies?
More airline obfuscation of reality? Orchestrated litany of lies?