Mt Erebus accident.

[gulfairs]

The local news media is again full of "expert opinions" as to who, what, why, and how did this terrible accident occur.
I was in the air in another DC10 at the time of the accident, and by a quirk of fate was not on board NZP, even though I had involved with both Lucas and Cassin on roster swaps prior to the accident.
The enquiry and accident reports on this prang are all full of lies deception, holier than thou statements that are so much a distortion of the truth, it is as hard as picking fly dirt out of pepper to get a complete truthful and accurate story of events prior to and indeed after the accident.
Blame has been afforded on the CEO of ANZ at the time, how he is to blame is still a mistry to me.
Capt Collins was the victim of a series of tragic mistakes and mis information.
Some of the previous captains( not all) flew in VMC conditions and flew low level up to Mc Murdo sounds.
Most of these Captains deny this but photgraphs from previous flight passengers show this to be a fact.
MSA was and still is 16000 ft, but it was allowed to be ignored if the Met conditions were OK for VFR type flying at a lower level.
Collins took this loop hole in the accepted practices.
Unfortunately Collins did not know that previous to his flight the computer generated flight plan had moved the Position of Mc Murdo by some 26 miles.
Collins had, prior to the flight used a flight plan printout that was issued by the Route briefing unit which DID NOT SHOW the new revised turning point at McMurdo.
Collins would have been confident that he had a clear VFR route to Mc Murdo,but ANZ administration had seen that he was short of current info.
Admittedly one of the crew, Casin and or Lucas would have cross checked that the printed format was the same as the format in the CDU, but I and most other pilots of the time did tend to skip along tracks a bit quickly because of time constraints.
To Deviate to Illustrate the point I was on a AKL HNL flight one night and the aircraft did a 180 degree turn at the transition of the date line. which took several minutes to clear.
I had enterered a longtitude with an East instead of a West at the date line transition.(This was not picked up in the xcheck of the CDU/Flightplan)
Capt Jim Collins was not to blame, for the accident even though some of the bottom lines state Pilot error.
Should it be able to get the whole truth out in the open a lot of egotistical short arsed pilots would have a little more than egg on their faces.

I add as a Post script ,I flew with every member of the crew on that flight in the previous six weeks, Collins was a good pilot to fly with, Casin was good But not tough enough to challenge a captain, Lucas was tough enough but he was back in the cabin at the time.
I did see a hand written transcript of the voice recorder that commenced with "You are wrong, stick it up your arse." Bang door slammed( ostensibly from Lucas). thence the rest of the 30 minutes of tape recording.
The real bottom line is a case of money.
Should the airline be in error the compensation claims are limitless, should the pilot be in error the claims are limited to US$40,000.00.
We are back to the big boys cheating again! and the small players paying as usual.
Little cog in big wheel.