John Hill: I don't think that either the ground tapes for the pre-Antarctic legs or the written logs were produced at the inquiry. Perhaps neither side attached any relevance to the information?
It has some relevance: The picture painted by Justice Mahon was of the captain carefully plotting his track on his atlas the night before, using a copy of an old flightplan. The track having been so carefully plotted, the crew would, allegedly, always know where they were, simply by looking at the 'miles to run' figure on the AINS.
Perhaps the careful plotting exercise didn't include the NZ sectors, given the planned altitude. But one would think that a mistaken opinion that one was over Queenstown might, a couple of hours later, have some effect on an opinion that one was in McMurdo Sound?