Thanks to this thread I've taken a renewed interest in this air disaster and started listening to the podcast. My wife joined me in my listen and raised the following concern: This crew flew all the way from NZ to Antarctica to find themselves at destination in clouds with a ceiling of 1500' and, onboard, 250+ fare paying passengers whose only purpose was the experience of seeing the ice. Throughout the crew training, passenger expectations beyond departing/arriving on time and a smooth landing are usually not the main concerns. This flight however was different as seeing Mt Erebus could admittedly be considered the crux of the whole flight, the reason passengers paid extra for their tickets, thus adding to the pressure of the crew. I want to tread carefully here as I've read that both pilots had extensive experience and were held in high regard by their peers. Without questioning their decision making skills, had the airline briefed them or given explicit instructions on the required course of actions to take should conditions at Ross Island be marginal? If not and therefore left at the captain's discretion, one could hypothesise that the PIC could have had a chain of thoughts along this: "The current conditions don't favour flying below LSALT, so my training and experience dictate that I should remain at 16,000' and head back home, as I would on any other flight. However I'm in a radar environment and the passengers' expectation is to see Mt Erebus, hence I'll make the call to descend below clouds. Otherwise I might face backlash from the airline if they all come home having paid this much for their tickets and seen nothing".
Therefore my question: Did Air New Zealand issue explicit directions to follow if conditions at destination precluded seeing the volcano?