Originally Posted by
prospector
Has it not been shown, and proven, that at no time were they in radar contact with McMurdo
No -and certainly not proven by Chippindale
please explain how this could be with a 13000ft mountain between them and the TX aerial, the only contact with McMurdo had been with the HF radio, not restricted to line of sight, and normally used for long range comms.
Who authorised the let-down then - Santa Claus?
The tower was working VHF, at no time did they have VHF contact with the tower, once again there was a 1arge lump of land, Ross Island between them, and the same for the DME. If they were on the ball, and were where they believed themselves to be that alone should have sent warning bells to someone. No radar, no VHF, no DME, and only 40 odd miles from the station.
Vette disagrees - he says the transponder was coding, the letdown was authorised and there was no NDB from which to get a DME until after the left turn aruond the island, having been decomissioned the previous year.
"The co pilot of Flt 901 never opened his flight bag to look up the co-ordinates. I always had a chart in the cockpit and checked the Lar and Long readout, but the crew of the fatal flight never refesrred to it" .
So how do you explain "Where are we... about up to here now." if they're not checking it against a map? We've already established that ANZ used the fact that Chippindale was not a qualified CVR transcriber to add lies to the transcript about being lost.
Where in that statement can you read into anything about erroneous CVR transcripts. And it also answers your previous question of how they could establish their position, with a great degree of accuracy, put the lat and long from the INS on the chart, befor descent was commenced..
Captain Collins, being the meticulous type, had done that the previous night - before it was changed without his knowledge. He was checking it off against a chart he had already drawn. Why else do you think that ANZ destroyed the evidence in his ringbinder and was prepared to break and enter into Collins' and Cassin's family homes in order to make sure everything that contradicted the lies they were telling Chippindale went through the shredder? Morrie Davis ordered those shredders fired up not after they came back from the ice, not when the Royal Commissions was announced, but *the day after the crash*. These are not the actions of a company interested in the truth, or in air safety.
But that still leaves unanswered why this "home design" descent was even contemplated.
It's not home design, it was a published procedure - that Chippindale allowed the press to assert that they were lost and going round in circles simply showed his inexperience.
The quite specific descent requirements were formulated because the powers that be were aware of the lack of AntArctic experience of the Air NZ crews.
Then why did they include in the regulations a stipulation that crews were allowed to descend as low as 500ft if invited to do so by Mac Central (who indeed invited Collins' crew down to 1,500ft)? This is a matter of record.
Perhaps the word they is inappropriate here, that infers the whole crew invented the let down procedure, The other first officer. Mr lucas was for some reason down the back and had no say in this, it would appear that Mr Cassin did not question the Captain's decisions at all.
There was no dissension at all, because the "crew loop" system was working. The only way ANZ, NZCA and Chippindale could claim that there was concern in the flight deck any more than a minute before impact was to falsify the CVR. Surely this has to cast doubt on their conclusions? As soon as F/E Brooks said "I don't like this", Collins started planning and initiating an escape procedure, but unfortunately they ran out of time.
Chippindale was a good pilot and an honest man, but he clearly was not prepared to deal with the level of corporate malfeasance that ANZ were willing to engage in to protect their public image.