Rongotai,
Agreed as to the accident causes and aftermath. But as has been shown during this thread many people accept that Mr Mahons findings were correct and indisputable. However, the findings of Mr Chippindale, the Chief Accident Inspector, is still the official account. Mr Mahon conducted a Royal Commission of Inquiry that was limited in its scope and the findings could not be appealed in legal terms. Much has been written since but the following statements to be found in John Kings publication New Zealand Tragedies, Aviation, Page 62, appertaining to Mr Mahons findings, and the reputations he sullied, should also be known more widely. "The court of appeal addressed several aspects that were brought to the commissioners notice during the enquiry but ignored by him. The five judges unaminously quashed the $150,00 costs order, imposed as a punishment for the alleged conspiracy" and from the Privy Council.
"In their judgement, delivered on 20 Oct 1983, the five Law Lords of the Privy Council dismissed the Commissioners appeal and upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal decision, which set aside the costs order against the Airline, on the grounds that Mahon had committed clear breaches of natural justice. They demolished his case item by item, including Exhibit 164 which they said could not"be understood by any experienced pilot to be intended for the purposes of navigation' and went even further, saying there was no clear proof on which to base a finding that a plan of deception, led by the company's chief executive, had ever existed".
The statement "An orchestrated litany of lies" would appear to live on, even after Mr Mahons reasons for making the statement have well and truly been demolished by both the Appeal Court and the Privy Council.
Prospector