And a sad day today:
RIP Ron Chippendale:
I still have the original Government copy of the accident findings by Ron Chippendale, together with, Impact Erebus, by Gordon Vette and Justice Peter Mahon.
To read them both collectively is "interesting".
If I could say that things where certainly different then, and with different values.
Ron Chippendale,Morrie Davis,& Sir Robert Muldoon, where of an OLD BOY era.
I mention this because of the political influence and I guess the some what “interferrence” by Morrie Davis & Sir Rob.
It is only my opinion that to some degree ,Ron was played by messer's Davis & Muldoon.
Yes the crew went below FL 160: but so had others.
This whole debate hinges around Captain Jim Collins and F/O Greg Casin "knowingly" operating VFR:
1/ They had not been trained in sector white out, Hence they thought they had clear air, and at some point something became apparent that they needed to get out of the position they were facing, I believe from reading both “reports” that from a totally “benign” & “ignorant” white out situation, that it was with some rapidness that conditions changed to the point that they wanted to get out of the conditions.
2/ They had no reason to doubt their INS system that was functioning perfectly.
3/ They had not operated the machine any different this day, to what other senior company pilots had previously.
4/ Jim Collins had drawn his intended track on a map the night before with his daughter, he had no reason to doubt the actual track, from track in his MINDS EYE from the night before:
5/ Jim Collins and Greg Casin did not know that FLt ops Dep had changed the Lat & long of a waypoint , with the result being a shift of the "MINDS EYE" route, to that of their actual flt path.
6/ The need for a topographical map in sector white out would have been pointless.
Tis indeed an interesting debate, and there has been an awful lot of good come out off this over the years, by way of "HUMAN FACTOR TRAINING".
As I said in a post last year, BRAVO GORDON VETTE!
Chr's
H/Snort