Originally Posted by
megan
Compressor Stall has extensive experience flying in Antarctica, both jet and smaller aircraft used for commuting about the ice, so any thing he has to say you can take as gospel. Posters commenting, such as the quote, don't seem to understand the whiteout phenomena. As I've commented before, I sat in the cockpit of a 747 as we climbed from 16,000 through to on top of a overcast layer at 20,000, below the overcast the vis was unlimited, right around the world, VMC, yet you could see nothing but white in any direction. It's one of those things you have to experience to believe. I liken it to the reverse of a pitch black night, vis may be unlimited but you can't see anything. To see something you need contrast.
Appeal to authority is a bit lowbrow for you I would’ve thought megan? I’ve read all about the extensive experience,yadda, yadda of various posters, and that is all great but is does not mean you are “gospel” - it ignores the fact that anyone can be anyone on the inter web, and it ignores that neither you or CS know who you are talking to, and what relevant experience they may have...
What “posters commenting such as he quote (above)” “don’t seem to understand” is that “we” are not asking about why they didn’t see the mountain in the literal sense (even the ampans & PH6s of the world). We understand the concept of whiteout/bouncing light/sector whiteout/lack of contrast. It staggers me that the “zero blame/responsibly” brigade miss the actual reason for the question - why, in “unlimited” visibility, one of the taller mountains in the world, was unsighted to them
in any direction throughout two 360° turns. If they truely believed they were VMC (and I don’t doubt that they thought they were) WHERE WAS THE MOUNTAIN? It was only 27nm away after all...
I know why he couldn’t SEE it because of whiteout, I want to know why not seeing it (a very nearby, tall mountain) didn’t ring alarm bells.
You don’t destroy documents if you’ve got nothing to hide
And all very irrelevant still. After the fact, not a contributing factor, no matter how much you may want it to be.
What prune DOES do is illustrate the major bias carried by quite a few
Bollocks. There’s an emotive, knee-jerk reaction to defend a fellow pilot who was clearly set-up, but equally made the enabling decision in the accident. You may not like the Ampan-style delivery but if you view this accident objectively you WILL end up deciding the crew were
a factor. There is no shame in that, it’s not apportioning “blame”, it just IS. The dogmatic amongst us seem to sit on just one side of the debate...
3. Points deducted from Chippendale Camp for personal and libellous attacks on individual during the debate
From my observation of the debate(both here and the 25year thread) from you 3-hole, this is the extent of your cogent argument - sorry chum, it just doesn’t work that way. Ah hominem may be unclassy, but if the point is valid, it remains so. There are no points, and you don’t get to deduct them.
How are we, as professionals STILL saying that because everyone else did it, the crew on this occasion are EXONERATED? This crew did something none of the other crews did - they hit the ground! As a thought experiment; had they successfully flown the escape manoeuvre and made it back to base - would an investigation have found them absolutely blameless?