Prospector writes:
No - it was not the requirement for descent on that flight."
From where do you get that statement, and how would you justify it??
I get it from the Royal Commission Report and justify it because it was given in evidence (somewhat reluctantly, it would appear) by company management.
k) It was alleged that the crew descended below the officially approved minimum safe altitude either of 16000 feet or 6000 feet and that this was the predominant cause of the accident. Although the chief inspector referred from time to time in his report that descent to 1500 feet, even though suggested and authorised by McMurdo Air Traffic Control. was in breach of the MSA rules officially in force, nevertheless the chief inspector recognised that there were pilots who evidently had misinterpreted the conditions surrounding descent to 6000 feet as if they referred only to a cloud break procedure, and did not prevent descent to any lower altitude consistent with air safety.
The Civil Aviation Division. not unnaturally, placed the breach of its MSA conditions in the forefront of its case. The airline witnesses also, for a considerable period of time, were inclined to rely strongly upon descent below 6000 feet as being in breach of the airline's rules and consequently as amounting to a decisive cause of the disaster. However, after the Commission had been sitting for many weeks it was for the first time revealed by the evidence of Captain Wilson that when briefing air crews for Antarctica flights in 1978 and 1979 he had told them that the practice on antarctic flights was to descend to whatever level was authorised by McMurdo Air Traffic Control, and he said in his brief of evidence that he did not indicate any criticism of this course.
This new aspect of the RCU; briefing was a most surprising revelation. I noticed that it occurred at the very end of Captain Wilson's prepared brief. Without wishing to appear too pedantic, I also observed that this significant concession appeared to have been added to the end of the brief with a different typewriter, so that the decision to reveal this information was not only very late in the day but also seemed to have the hallmarks of a last-minute decision. It also appeared that the chief inspector had not been appraised of this unwritten feature of the antarctic briefings. I have already referred briefly to this disclosure in paragraph 168 above, and that it had not been previously mentioned to the chief inspector. So here there had been, up until this point, a sedulous reliance by the airline and by Civil Aviation Division upon a breach by Captain Collins of the prevailing MSA rules. that breach being treated as if it obliterated each and every error that might have previously been made by the airline or by Civil Aviation Division. But as from the time of Captain Wilson's admission, the MSA defence, if I may call it that, could not prevail against Captain Collins.
In the final submissions for the airline it was admitted that there were a number of pilots who testified that in VMC conditions they considered it permissible to descend below 6000 feet outside the specified safety sector. It was submitted that Captain Wilson had been under a misconception when he appeared to share the same opinion. Captain Wilson had said:
"In a visual strictly visual VMC letdown providing the weather was clear, very good weather, ceiling and visibility unlimited and provided that the Captain received permission of McMurdo, he could have descended outside that particular segment." (T 1224) The submissions for the airline went on to assert (at para. 7.85) that Captain Collins had carried out his descent outside the specified sector and below 6000 feet "which, on the face of it, constituted a breach of the briefing instructions". This latter submission is plainly wrong. When Captain Collins decided to descend to 1500 feet in VMC conditions with the specific authority of McMurdo Air Traffic Control, he was in fact acting in accordance with the authority given to him at his RCU briefing.
The final submissions for Civil Aviation Division proceeded upon the simple and unqualified basis that the MSA conditions laid down by the division had been contravened, not only in the present case but in previous cases. That of course may be a material factor as between the division and the airline, although I have already expressed my reservations as to the division's alleged lack of knowledge of the levels at which pilots flew in 1978 and in 1979 in the McMurdo area. But I am concerned here, of course, with the position as between the airline and its pilots and there can be no doubt, upon all the evidence, that the pilots were in fact authorised at the RCU briefings in 1978 and 1979 to descend below 6000 feet in VMC conditions to any altitude authorised by McMurdo Air Traffic Control. This allegation of pilot error must accordingly fail.