Mahon Biography - "Breaking Ranks" - James McNeish

[ampan]

As someone who boasts of having read every published word on the Erebus accident, I had little choice but to spend NZD34.99 buying “Breaking Ranks” by James McNeish, which includes a biography of Justice Mahon. I loath that late Honourable gentleman so was delighted with the beginning at page 211:

"Sam Mahon tells the story of a family Christmas in Auckland during which … his father took out a thin cigar and lit it. ‘Father, it isn’t polite to smoke between courses,’ Janet chided. Whereupon Judge Mahon blew out a stream of smoke towards the ceiling, rested the cigar on a plate and skipped nimbly around the table, tapping his wife and daughter lightly on the breast as he passed, then sat down and picked up his cigar where he had left it. ‘Gracious, Peter, what on earth was that about?’ said Margarita, mystified, as they all were. ‘That? That, Mother,” the judge said, after a pause, ‘was the titter that ran around the crowd."

It was all downhill after that: After Mahon resigned as a judge he was engaged as a guest lecturer at the Auckland University’s Law School. It was there that he was befriended by other fatuous windbags, one of whom was Stuart Macfarlane. Another was Bernard Brown, who has written the epilogue to Mr McNeish’s book – so it appears that McNeish might be just another of Mahon’s camp followers. He clearly did not bother with any research: “… just before they took off, someone at Air New Zealand had punched the wrong digits into the plane’s navigational computer …” (page 299). Whoever punched the digits into the navigational computer is not a matter of much importance but as everyone who has researched the accident will know, and that group does not include Mr McNeish, the digits were punched in by the pilots. The purported justification for McNeish's intellectual laziness is at page 238:

“There are several ‘truths’. Mine is based in part on the book Mahon wrote shortly before he died, 'Verdict on Erebus'. No one else talked to experts on three continents, plumbed the enigma of ‘whiteout’ and the navigational issue, pored over 284 documents and exhibits and sifted through3000 papers after listening to evidence for 75 days. I make no apology for taking sides.”

Pathetic.


Thirty-five bucks. For what? Nothing, except the daughter and the tit-tapping.

[megan]

Give it a rest.

[27/09]

Originally Posted by megan

Give it a rest.

Plus one to that.

[BernLagan]

rubbish ampan

The two degrees of longitude change made by Air New Zealand's navigation section to the flight path - not made known to the flight crew -was the fundamental, obvious and effective cause of the disaster. Peter Mahon exposed the massive holes in the report of the Inspector of Air Accidents which wrongly blamed the flight crew. I suggest you read the Mahon Report cover to cover than Peter Mahon's book.

[ampan]

I assume that “give it a rest” is directed at this McNeish person. Megan need not worry, because on the back of the book, above the “Whitcoulls $34.99”sticker, appears the following: “A master of tone and a warrior of words, Sir James McNeish is one of New Zealand’s literary greats. He died in November 2016 after handing in the manuscript for ‘Breaking Ranks’, which became his final work, and is destined to become a classic of New Zealand non-fiction.” At least Captain Holmes had a go. This pathetic “literary great” did not. He was either too lazy, too thick, or too concerned about offending “Bernard Brown, Parnell. A friend” - and an acquaintance of Mahon from the Auckland University Law School and the creator of the strange rambling epilogue.

BernLagen: The device that you’re referring to was one of several navigation aids. Its role was to get the aircraft across the Southern Ocean, which it did. The particular navigation aid was not to be used to go below the height of a nearby mountain, because the navigation aid might be wrong, and the plane might hit the mountain. Jim Collins knew that the navigation aid was not to be used to go below the height of a nearby mountain but he did so nevertheless. The navigation aid was wrong. The plane hit the mountain.

The only thing that might be argued with in the above is the navigational status of a 1970s inertial navigation system. I’ll leave it to Gordon Vette:

"Left alone to fly at 35000 feet, the three inertial boxes and their computer would take them unerringly to McMurdo, turn around and bring them home. But this was certainly not the trip the passengers had paid for. The machine would need to descend soon after it passed the Cape Hallett corner, and continue descending near high land masses until it reached the McMurdo waypoint at the head of the sound. The high altitude reliance they placed on the Area [Inertial] Navigation [System] would revert to more complex and time-consuming methods; radio beacons including Distance Measuring Equipment, gyro compass, grid navigation and most importantly, visual 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 (MSA) 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’ in pilot jargon." (‘Impact Erebus’ pp118, 119)

Were it not for the errors made by the navigator in the cockpit, the errors made by the navigators on the ground would not have mattered. Data-entry mistakes in internal navigation systems had occurred throughout the 1970s and the possibility was widely known ,hence Vette’s remarks.

I suspect that Mahon thought himself to be very clever in heaping praise on the accuracy of the DC-10’s top-of-the-range three-platform inertial navigation system. But in doing so, he forgets what happened: The top-of-the-range three-platform inertial navigation system was wrong, and the place hit the mountain.

[megan]

Mods, could you please close. It's been done to death, and always devolves into acrimony. I beg of you.

[Dark Knight]

[ampan]

For the sake of completeness I should point out that 'Breaking Ranks" also contains biographies of John Saxby and Reginald Miles, neither of which I've read and neither of whom I've heard of. According to the back of the book, the former was a doctor and the latter was a soldier. Both must have 'broken ranks' in some way, although the back of the book does not say how, leaving one to assume they were homos*xuals. Sir James McNeish, as Dark Knight points out, intended finishing things off and cementing his place in New Zealand's literary history by describing the life of a stone that broke ranks by being a slightly different colour to the stones around him. Unfortunately, Sir James changed his mind and wrote about Mahon instead. Then, like Captain Holmes before him, he died.


Let that be a warning to those others out there who might be contemplating ignoring Megan's plea to give this thing a rest. Sure, there'll be a knighthood - but there'll be no time to enjoy it.

[AerialPerspective]

This is all very academic but none of it excuses the fact that certain Air NZ management lied through their damn teeth to the inquiry and tried to cover up anything that might have contributed to the disaster from a company perspective. A random break in at the Collins' residence might be explained away but not the theft of documents, the disappearance of the pages of a manual found at the crash site and numerous other 'odd' occurrences that paint the picture of a company that was scared it would disappear so prevaricated about the facts to try and get out from under. Mahon exposed that and he was the subject of a drawn out campaign to destroy him by those that were affected by his commission.

I echo the previous poster who said "give it a rest" - or re-adjust your tin-foil hat.

[TWT]

The Undead Thread: Like a zombie that refuses to die it has risen once again.

Whatever your (firmly held) opinions are,let it go.For good.The only party benefiting from yet another reprise are the proprietors of this site who will get more 'eyes on' advertising.

[C441]

Suffice to say that subsequent Antarctic scenic flights have heeded the lessons learnt from this sad event.

Isn't that all that really matters 40-odd years after the event?

[ampan]

ArialPerspective just couldn’thelp himself, could he? With one hand he gives it a rest, while flogging it with the other. The things he refers to are also referred to in Chapter 25 at page 255 of ‘Verdict on Erebus’, this book being the sole source of McNeish’s biography, as least as regards the Erebus accident- (he got the daughter's titty stuff from Mahon’s son). As regards the burglary, it all sounds very sinister. You can almost see the silhouette of the Air New Zealand spy creeping around and you can definitely hear the violin but then, right at the end, the side is completely let down, with this:

“My own impression of the incident was that of someone who had lost a relative or friend in the disaster had become aware from the newspapers that the aircrew were being blamed, and by reason, probably, of emotional disturbance might have searched the Collins home for any documents relating to the disaster.” (p274)

So Air New Zealand had nothing to do with it? Why, then, do ArialPerspective and others think they might have? Far from being the brave character who broke ranks and paid for it with his life, Mahon was just a slimey weasel. All of his conspiracy theories were wrong and I would behappy to explain why, if any NZALPA lacky out there would care to nominate one. By way of an example, let’s take “the gap in the passengers photograph" at pages 258 and 259 of Mahon’s book:

“When, at an early stage of the enquiry, I had surveyed the available range of passengers’ photographs, I had become concerned, to some degree, that there was a sequence of photographs which seemed to me to be missing. Many hundreds of the photographic prints had been developed from the cameras found on the crash site. The photographs produced at the hearing showed views to the east, west and north. But there was not a single photograph which showed the view to the south, that is to say, towards Ross Island. If you looked at the flight path of the aircraft as it completed its two orbits, it was obvious that there had been four occasions upon which the aircraft had been side-on to Ross Island. On the two most southern aspects of the orbits the aircraft had been only five to ten miles from the ultimate impact position. Each of these turning sequences had meant the passengers on one side of the aircraft or the other had been able to take photographs to the south from a fairly short range."

The same silhouette then appears, with more violin, ending with this:

"So this was another of the unresolved mysteries of the inquiry. I would have given a great deal to have seen what the passengers had seen when they looked to the south because that would have been what the flightcrew had seen. And I had the uneasy impression that, somewhere or other, during this highly complicated and difficult process of sorting through hundreds of photographs, evidence of a vital nature might have been unidentified or mislaid."

All made-up nonsense: If Mahon had this uneasy impression “at an early stage in the inquiry” he would surely have raised the matter. He did not. If he had, it would have been pointed that the aircraft was travelling with its flaps retracted at well over two hundred knots, so would have had to be banked quite steeply to complete the orbits. The passengers would not have seen what the flight crew saw. The aircraft was never side-on to Ross Island - hence the lack of photographs.

The Honourable gentleman was actually a dishonourable ignoramus. He did not let the truth get in the way of a good story and its associated royalties. There are other examples: Chapter 18 at page 204 - “My Visit To The Crash Site” - is largely fictional and when it gets on to the subject of Beaufort Island, a demonstrable load of bull****. For confirmation, compare what is written there to Mahon’s report, also written after his visit to the crash site. The inconsistencies are so glaring that it looks like he visited Antarctica on two different occasions. For the avoidance of doubt, he only went once.

[Dark Knight]

[3 Holer]

Most TROLLS only last about 10 posts. 400 plus, ampan, I'm impressed !

[ampan]

one more

Royal Commission Report p118

“… although no direct reference is made to [Beaufort Island] in the CVR transcript apart from Mr Mulgrew’s “land ahead”, the five persons on the flight deck undoubtedly saw Beaufort Island, and mistook it for a different island altogether …”

‘Verdict on Erebus’ p202

"Mulgrew had been to Antarctica on previous occasions and he would have identified Beaufort Island without hesitation at low altitude during the orbiting sequences. But he had not seen it. "

So the Honourable bull****-artist completely contradicts himself, but then goes on to the point where an informed reader becomes embarrassed:

"As the aircraft straightened up and resumed its Nav track, Beaufort Island was now about four miles behind, and there could be no doubt , on this reconstruction, that as the DC10 flew onwrds towards disaster, Mulgrew had never had the chance to see that Beaufort Island was on the right of the aircraft instead of on the left, and to reaslise, with his past experience of the region, that they were flying directly at Ross Island. …

In later days, I though over again what I have just described. I tried to imagine Peter Mulgrew making his way forward along the aisle, moving a little slowly with his artificial legs, anxious to reach the flight deck …

Perhaps as he neared the flight deck a passenger detained him for a minute or two. Perhaps he stopped to converse with a group of people standing in the aisle. …

If only Mulgrew had reached the flight deck two minutes earlier …

I could not escape the conclusion that a delay of only two minutes in reaching the flight deck … had prevented him from averting disaster. And I reflected, as I had done so often before, upon the malignity of the hovering fates which had shadowed throughout its journey the flight path ofTW901."

He visits the ice, concludes that Mulgrew never saw Beaufort Island but never says so in his subsequent report and actually says the opposite. The phrase "bull****-artist" is overly flattering.

[747-419]

[QUOTE= I loath that late Honourable gentleman [/QUOTE]

So how can any of your previous 400 odd posts have any credibility when you have a prejudice like that.

I don't want to discourage you from this topic as your posts always give me a good laugh.

I, like 3 Holer am impressed that you have stuck at it so long when everybody else has let it go.

[AerialPerspective]

Originally Posted by ampan

ArialPerspective just couldn’thelp himself, could he? With one hand he gives it a rest, while flogging it with the other. The things he refers to are also referred to in Chapter 25 at page 255 of ‘Verdict on Erebus’, this book being the sole source of McNeish’s biography, as least as regards the Erebus accident- (he got the daughter's titty stuff from Mahon’s son). As regards the burglary, it all sounds very sinister. You can almost see the silhouette of the Air New Zealand spy creeping around and you can definitely hear the violin but then, right at the end, the side is completely let down, with this:

“My own impression of the incident was that of someone who had lost a relative or friend in the disaster had become aware from the newspapers that the aircrew were being blamed, and by reason, probably, of emotional disturbance might have searched the Collins home for any documents relating to the disaster.” (p274)

So Air New Zealand had nothing to do with it? Why, then, do ArialPerspective and others think they might have? Far from being the brave character who broke ranks and paid for it with his life, Mahon was just a slimey weasel. All of his conspiracy theories were wrong and I would behappy to explain why, if any NZALPA lacky out there would care to nominate one. By way of an example, let’s take “the gap in the passengers photograph" at pages 258 and 259 of Mahon’s book:

“When, at an early stage of the enquiry, I had surveyed the available range of passengers’ photographs, I had become concerned, to some degree, that there was a sequence of photographs which seemed to me to be missing. Many hundreds of the photographic prints had been developed from the cameras found on the crash site. The photographs produced at the hearing showed views to the east, west and north. But there was not a single photograph which showed the view to the south, that is to say, towards Ross Island. If you looked at the flight path of the aircraft as it completed its two orbits, it was obvious that there had been four occasions upon which the aircraft had been side-on to Ross Island. On the two most southern aspects of the orbits the aircraft had been only five to ten miles from the ultimate impact position. Each of these turning sequences had meant the passengers on one side of the aircraft or the other had been able to take photographs to the south from a fairly short range."

The same silhouette then appears, with more violin, ending with this:

"So this was another of the unresolved mysteries of the inquiry. I would have given a great deal to have seen what the passengers had seen when they looked to the south because that would have been what the flightcrew had seen. And I had the uneasy impression that, somewhere or other, during this highly complicated and difficult process of sorting through hundreds of photographs, evidence of a vital nature might have been unidentified or mislaid."

All made-up nonsense: If Mahon had this uneasy impression “at an early stage in the inquiry” he would surely have raised the matter. He did not. If he had, it would have been pointed that the aircraft was travelling with its flaps retracted at well over two hundred knots, so would have had to be banked quite steeply to complete the orbits. The passengers would not have seen what the flight crew saw. The aircraft was never side-on to Ross Island - hence the lack of photographs.

The Honourable gentleman was actually a dishonourable ignoramus. He did not let the truth get in the way of a good story and its associated royalties. There are other examples: Chapter 18 at page 204 - “My Visit To The Crash Site” - is largely fictional and when it gets on to the subject of Beaufort Island, a demonstrable load of bull****. For confirmation, compare what is written there to Mahon’s report, also written after his visit to the crash site. The inconsistencies are so glaring that it looks like he visited Antarctica on two different occasions. For the avoidance of doubt, he only went once.

Gee... what a tool. For a start it's Aerial not 'Arial' - also making your typeface different doesn't impress us any more than your first load of drivel. By the way, aside from getting my name wrong, what does Trans-World Airlines have to do with this... I thought the flight number was TE901 not TW901... small thing yes, but it betrays the frantic, troll like, angry way you must type your posts.

A single issue moron. Nothing more. Get over yourself and stop wasting everyone's time. My post by the way was just pointing out that you totally ignore the lies from the airline... I knew people there at the time and they were embarrassed by the conduct of the company, one was a person who'd been with them for 25+ years and wouldn't normally hear a bad word said about his company.

[AerialPerspective]

Originally Posted by 747-419

So how can any of your previous 400 odd posts have any credibility when you have a prejudice like that.

I don't want to discourage you from this topic as your posts always give me a good laugh.

I, like 3 Holer am impressed that you have stuck at it so long when everybody else has let it go.

Bravo 747-419... most sensible comment on this thread so far.

[ampan]

AerialPerspective; You're 19 years of age and live with your mother in Adelaide. Last year, you were going to join ISIS but chickened out.


Prove me wrong by quoting a piece of evidence given by an Air New Zealand witness and then explaining why its a lie.

[AerialPerspective]

Originally Posted by ampan

AerialPerspective; You're 19 years of age and live with your mother in Adelaide. Last year, you were going to join ISIS but chickened out.


Prove me wrong by quoting a piece of evidence given by an Air New Zealand witness and then explaining why its a lie.

Oh for goodness sake, go away. You have serious problems obviously and I'm not going to debate a serious accident where many people lost their lives with a person obviously suffering from some form of mental illness.. ISIS, Adelaide, p l e a s e ... get some help.

You fit every definition of a troll and a person who argues for the sake of arguing, you simply cannot leave something alone, you must have the last word always, when you don't get that or think you're being defeated you resort to making things up about the other poster. I'm not going to respond again because that's what your psyche wants, an enemy to argue with, a post to respond to, ad infinitum-ad nauseum - responding just keeps you going. Better to just ignore you and give you nothing to come back at.

Moderator - please shut this down, it serves no purpose whatsoever in the context of this site - let this person start their own blog if they wish.