Originally Posted by
henry crun
It may or may not have shown on the radar, regardless of whether it did or did not show, by then Collins was accepted a VMC descent and, as I have already explained, had accepted complete responsibilty for his flight safety.
Knowing this, the controller might well have looked away from the scope to talk to a colleague, or perhaps perform some other admin task.
That sounds like an excuse to me. Given that Collins' VMC descent (and assumption of responsibility) was in real terms entirely predicated on his position being 27 miles west of where it actually was, and on the assumption that the radar controller agreed to the let-down (which implies the radar controller should be aware of the position), it is then unfair to pin blame on Collins who only had the information he was given - some of it incomplete and some of it completely incorrect - to work with. If he had been made aware that the information he was given was not up to scratch, then certainly he could be held responsible for relying on it, but the fact is that he was not and never was made aware - as far as he was concerned the flight was routine, the computer nav track was the same as it was in the briefing and over a dozen flights had followed that briefing to safety.