Desert Dingo #137: Thanks D. Dingo. Great post. (I wish I could figure out how to do that.)
Starting with the passenger map, I accept that this was available at the briefing, but doubt that it was given any attention. It was obviously not intended to represent the nav track down McMurdo Sound from Cape Hallett and back, because the nav track going back was the same as the nav track going down.
As for the other four maps, they all show a route that turns left at the Byrd Reporting Point. But as you note, that’s the military route, for aircraft landing at McMurdo Station. Obviously, none of the AirNZ flights intended landing at McMurdo Station – which is why none of the flights made any left turn at Byrd. They usually went to the right of track to get a closer view of the coast of Victoria Land, and then turned left towards McMurdo Station, passing the general Byrd location on the way.
But the real point is that the pilots at the briefing were expressly told that they would not be flying the military route. Even Capt. Gabriel accepted that this was said.
Another point: Although the strip chart is obviously a topographical map, it was not available at the briefing. Rather, it was one of the maps provided on the morning of the flight.
As for Ex. 164, I don’t understand the controversy. AirNZ said it was a working document prepared by the nav section and that it made yet another error by including it in the briefing materials for the 1978 flights. Is that explanation not plausible? All anyone needs to do is look at the document. Would anyone draw any conclusions about the nav track from a “chart” like that?
When you refer, in red capitals, to the “briefed track”, what do you mean? Do you mean the track shown on a couple of handouts? So does a briefing consist of the receipt of handouts? So why not simply mail the handouts to the pilots and let that constitute the briefing? You have to consider the whole briefing exercise: Slides with accompanying audio, plus the verbal information from Capt. Wilson, plus the subsequent simulator session conducted by Capt. Johnson.
For the sake of argument, let it be assumed that Capts. Wilson and Johnson are the liars that they are alleged to be, and that both were prepared to risk several months in prison (for … and I’m struggling here … in Wilson’s case, to keep his post-retirement briefing job at half the salary that he received before? As for Johnson, to keep on getting that extra 4k per annum, minus lost expenses, that he got for being an executive pilot?) So let’s ignore any evidence from Capts. Wilson and Johnson. Let’s only use the union’s evidence.
Start with Exhibit 12, which was the script that Wilson used to make the audio commentary. This is what the script says, and this is what the audio said:
“A standard route definition will be used employing the From-Via-To format. Enter NZAA then 78S/167E this being the approximate co-ordinates of McMurdo Station.”
Desert Dingo suggests that the above co-ordinates are also the approximate co-ordinates of a point 20nm to the west of McMurdo Station, by the Dailey Islands. Really? The actual co-ordinates of the final waypoint for TE901 were “7752.7S/1665.80E”. If you round those ordinates off to the nearest degree, the result is 78S/167E. The co-ordinates for the Dailey Islands waypoint were “7753.0S/16448.0E”. If you round those co-ordinates off to the nearest degree the result is 78S/165E.
Further, I have the whole of the script in front of me, and there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the waypoint was anywhere other than at McMurdo Station.
Moving on to the pilots who attending briefings in 1978 and 1979, not a single solitary one of them said that “Wilson told us that the nav track went to a point by the Dailey Islands”. The only evidence they gave was either in the negative: “”He didn’t say the track went over Erebus” or it was “We did some rough eyeballing etc.” Not a single one gave any evidence about what Wilson said about the location of the final waypoint. Desert Dingo has done the search, and has come up with nothing. There is no evidence from any pilot to the effect that “Wilson said that the nav track went to a point by the Dailey Islands [or somewhere similar].”