I hope the new generation of Captains/First Officers coming through now, who are reading this and learning about Erebus for the first time, spend some time trying to understand this crash as it can ( and did for me fifteen years or so ago) bring in to focus the purpose, the theory, the importance, of Minimum Safe Altitudes and the Captains responsibility in relation to them.
Regardless of the degree to which Collins was ‘set up’, and without getting emotional about it, have a think about your own personal approach to this responsibility.. Have a think about the errors from management, software designers, flight planning departments, Engineers loading data into your computers, etc that you are expected to absorb and mitigate while under time pressure. Have a think about how you will react when the theory and purpose of these rules and procedures is opposed by ‘group think’ or company culture/expectations, or a forceful air traffic controller. Develop a strong and clear position now in the comfort of your lounge room chair so that you don’t have to search for that position while doing 300kts.
Your job isn’t to prevent Engineers and software developers and flight planning departments from making errors, it’s to expect and mitigate them.
None of the above is a slur on Collins, it was a different time with different training and knowledge and technology. Collins didn’t have the opportunity to study this crash, we do. Our best way as pilots to honour the memory of all onboard is to take the lessons and apply them in a practical way to our modern flying environment.
If you just spend an hour or two reading about this it’s easy to flop into one camp or another, you need to go a bit deeper than that (like many here have done before) and look at it from a few different angles.
I hope some of you do, it’s worth it.