When Captain Collins accepted the invitation from the United States air traffic controller to descend to 1500 feet where he would find himself in clear air, and with unlimited visibility, he was acting in compliance with authority directly given to him by the airline's briefing officer and under conditions approved by the United States' air traffic controller. The proposed over-flight of McMurdo Sound in the areas specified by the air traffic controller was at a perfectly safe altitude.
Contrary to what I think has been a public misconception over this altitude question, there was at no time on 28 November 1979 any unauthorised "low flying" by the crew of TE 901.
I think therein lies the truth, despite prospectors deperate, ongoing attempts to malign the crew involved and support the 'official investigators' original stance. That the investigators stance has been comprehensively proven to be wrong, there will always be some who (for reasons of their own) will be unable to accept the truth. The investigators proclivity towards managing the facts to fit his own preconceptions is made clearly obvious in the Mahon report, Capt. Vette's investigation and writings -and something I can personally attest to from peripheral involvement with the same investigator during the course of another widely publicised crash.