I'm sorry. To me Chippendale's probable cause lays all the "blame" at the feet of the Captain, and that is what caused the dissension (Mahon etc). In his conclusions he covers the ground extremely well as to the systemic failures and I would give him 9.5 out of 10 for his report. In fact, given the comments he makes in his conclusions it is somewhat difficult, I find, to reconcile his probable cause. Perhaps it's just me. All the brouhaha would have been avoided with the modern day method of reporting in which the conclusions chapter lists the latent failures, along with the active failures, and ends with safety recommendations. Nobody is placed in the position of being "blamed" (negligence aside) because the question asked with regard to latent and active failures is always "why", and the necessary recommendations are made to put measures in place to avoid a repeat. The Qantas Bangkok over run report is absolutely outstanding in how the investigators address the latent and active failures, highly recommended reading.
they were all in crystal clear CAVOK conditions
prospector, it would seem you have little understanding or appreciation of the hazards revolving around operations in the polar regions, else you would not be making that statement. You're not to be faulted for that of course. And it's the reason I keep saying that an incident/accident had the writing on the wall while ever ANZ operated the flights in the manner that they were. If it wasn't Captain Collins and crew and passengers, it would have been another unfortunate flight.