SR71/ Brian Abraham,
''Flying VFR they certainly did accept responsibility for their own terrain seperation, but the problem is THEY HAD NO TRAINING OR EXPERIENCE IN POLAR OPERATIONS, particularly in regard to the white out phenonema. Are they then held to be at fault for not knowing what they don't know."
Why can you not see, it was because of this situation, no Antarctic experience, that such specific descent instructions were part of their brief. It was to prevent just such an event from occuring.
By the way they were VMC not VFR.
"they had no controlling function. Their role was merely one of co-ordination as pointed out in my previous post."
Why then was a case taken in Washington DC in front of Judge Harold Greene to try to apportion blame to the Air Traffic Controllers for not telling the crew that Erebus was in their way, is that the job of a Co-ordinator???, why are they referred to in all the documentation as Air Traffic Controllers.?
FO Yes 901, that would be handy. We'd like to descend and maintain flight level one six zero.
MC Kiwi 901, Mac Centre descend and maintain flight level one six zero.
Sounds like a controller to me
And in the end, basically, if I was flying a DC10 at something above 260 kts, over a piece of ground I had never been to before, at 1490ft or whatever, I would want far more confirmation of my position than this crew had.
Last edited by prospector; 19th Feb 2008 at 02:11.