Originally Posted by
PapaHotel6
Why is that so many of the Mahon disciples seem to have trouble seeing middle ground? There's no one here, that I'm aware of, who is saying Collins was wholely responsible for this accident. Yes, Air New Zealand, ALPA and CAA all made a string of bad judgements that were shoddy at best, negligent at worst but that in itself does not mean that far better couldn't have, and shouldn't have been expected of Collins on the day. Mahon opined that the crew made no error that contributed to the accident and there are plenty of us that have a major issue with that statement.
The only intelligent debate at this point (and it's actually not one I'm interested in having) is in how much (ie. greater than zero) blame can be attributed to the actions of the crew.
It also strikes me that there are several posters here who have a significant conflict of interest. To this I would just say one thing. There were 256 people apart from Collins who lost their lives that day. The legacy of those people - and those they left behind - deserves truth. And that truth is more important than imparting upon the pilot's family a comforting thought that is not, in fact, real.
And there seem to be multiple people on here who either CAN'T READ or can read but CAN'T UNDERSTAND... I never said Collins was blameless, only that the circumstances likely led to any errors he made because the environment he was placed in with no experience flying in the polar region and wrong coordinates, the terrible coincidence of a visible area of rising ground that perfectly matched what they expected to see in the area where they were led to believe they were flying, all contributed to the illusion that they were somewhere else entirely. That's my only salient point, that Mahon looked at all those factors which would have normally been dismissed by the standard of accident investigation of the time, but are now an integral part of accident investigation.
It beggars belief that on several occasions I've gone to pains to explain that my point in support of the Mahon approach is that he didn't just classify errors as errors, he put them in the context of the situation in which they occurred. A waste of energy repeating it I fear as some here just simply can't get the subtlety of that point and respond with the, frankly, p-ss weak "Mahon disciple".
I've even defended Chippendale on this thread, in the context of his examination of the accident being consistent with the accident investigation methodology of the time but what I can't defend, nor would attempt to is jetting off to the UK to have another transcript of the CVR completed, essentially by himself and with none of the rigour that was apparently applied to the first transcript, utilising people that knew the voices of the crew. Add to that the fact that a parliamentarian who later tabled the Mahon report in parliament also revealed information that Chippendale had enjoyed 23 free of charge trips for himself and his partner on Air NZ in the years that followed. Now, all of that may be totally innocent and/or naively accepted without realising the impression it might give but there's just two elements which in
any reasonable and objective view would bring into question the efficacy of the report and the fact it blamed everything on the crew. Like I said, maybe entirely innocent, but in any forum it would raise questions.
Here's a tip. Try putting aside the ridiculous 'Mahon disciple' phrase and actually read the words.