Chippindale Aircraft accident report
Annex D p6
The final approach to the accident site was with the autothrottles in the “Speed’ mode with 260 kts commanded. “Nav Track” was in the roll mode with the aircraft maintaining a grid heading of 357-358 degrees, “Alt Hold” was in the pitch mode with 1500 feet commanded.
and report 1.1.9
The accident occurred in daylight at 0050 hours (Z) at a position 77.25.30S 177.27.30E and at an altitude of 1467 feet AMSL.
Now, although I disagree completely with some of the conclusions made by Chippindale, there is nothing wrong with his source data.
(Well – not much anyway. Apart from his putting a bit extra into the CVR transcript, and claiming that Annex ‘J’ was in the documentation – but that last bit was a misdirection fed to him by the company, so you can’t really blame him for that, although it did give him a pre-conceived idea as to the cause of the accident.)
Let’s have a look at the FDR traces
http://members.optuszoo.com.au/d.dingo/Appendix 4.jpg
The altitude trace comes down to 1500 feet and stays there. Nowhere does it go near 700 feet.
Let’s have a look at the map of the wreckage
http://members.optuszoo.com.au/d.dingo/Annex E.jpg
This shows the wreckage extending up the slope from 1465 to 1900 feet.
That is a pretty good trick to get all your wreckage up there from 700 feet.
Perhaps the 700 feet Greybeard quotes is raw uncalibrated data. Even that does not seem right. The QNH was set to 29.30 “Hg (that is an offset of 570 feet from standard). That only gets the FDR down to 930 feet if it was using 29.92 as a reference. Maybe there was a fixed -230 ft error as well? I dunno.
There is no substantiated evidence to support the flight at 700 feet claim, and there is any amount of evidence that they were at 1500 feet.
I note Prospector seized on the flight at 260 kts and 700 feet claim as proof that the crew were irrational to support his “pilot error” case.
Flying at 260 kts was perfectly rational. They were not permitted to extend flaps to fly slowly, in case there was a problem retracting them. If the flaps stuck extended they would be unable to get back to New Zealand because of the performance penalty. The 0/RET minimum clean manouvering speed was around 240-250 kts (it is in the reports somewhere, but I can’t be bothered looking it up), so 260 kts would be a good choice.
Where is the evidence they were flying at 700 feet altitude? There is none.
A quote from Captain Vette seems appropriate here:
....... an excellent insight into the mind of that category of pilot who fails to understand the role of human factors in accident investigation and analysis.
Peter Garrison, in his book 'Pilot Error', clearly articulated some of the characteristics of such pilots when he stated;
"Again and again, pilots are found to show little sympathy for their colleagues who are hurt or die; some simplifying explanation is immediately hit upon to reassure the others that the same fate will not be theirs."
Some senior and highly experienced pilots who have had long careers in the aviation industry often play an influential role in masking the true cause of an accident. Such pilots find a superficial study of evidence sufficient to inform themselves of the underlying cause of an accident. The years of experience which they have accumulated are thus both an advantage and a threat to aviation. Such pilots are a threat to aviation when they do not entertain an analytical presentation of the facts. As a consequence they divorce themselves from establishing the true causes of aircraft accidents.
They are further sustained in this position by the self confidence which comes from the completion of a long and successful career in aviation. This at once affirms the correctness of their views and gives their views an aura of authority.
All of this has the unfortunate effect of lending respectability to superficial analyses of accident data, and simplistic assertions of 'pilot error'. Accordingly it can contribute nothing to accident prevention and often supports positions damning to professional colleagues who are in no position to respond. This is the worst of both worlds.
I have to agree.