It was raised in one of the documentaries (Flight 901 to Erebus) that there had been many documented instances in the media, and in Air NZ's own publicity material, where flights were conducted below MSA. Other pilots - prior to Erebus - had done this as well.
Is it not then feasible - given the circumstances - that 'company culture' played a role in shaping the actions of the crew, not just in the realm of this accident, but in prior Antarctic flights as well? Evidence and submissions showed many contradictions in terms of what expectations and rules crew were to follow.
Put much better than I could.
The statement by Justice Mahon that the decision to go below the route MSA had nothing to do with the accident shows to me anyway, the folly of appointing someone who had never sat in the drivers seat of any aircraft, to enquire into, and criticize the findings of a highly qualified Aircraft Accident Inspector.
And conversely, had things been left with the Chippindale/ANZ report that focused on the MSA breach to the exclusion of all else, a whole plethora of lessons about company culture would not have been learnt.
The point I was trying to get at, that Mr Seatback 2 has explained so eloquently, is that while a descent in what could have been marginal conditions while relying on INS was a contributing factor to the crash, it was not the first such descent made, and in fact ANZ had been quietly removing layers of safety for two years prior to the accident, and had also been very lax about enforcing the MSA - which in today's world would and should be considered major contributing factors to the accident. That the holes in the cheese created by ANZ lined up on flight it did had more to do with bad luck than especially poor judgement (compared to their peers in ANZ) on the part of the crew in charge that day.
Remember - the only part of Mahon's report that was censured was the language referring to a cover-up. ANZ and Muldoon claimed that the whole thing was vacated, when in fact the report was considered painstaking and a model of its kind in every respect other than that.