Originally Posted by
framer
Yeah , i just think there is no point getting into what they potentially thought they could or couldnīt see once they had descended to 1500 feet.
"Potential" has nothing to do with it. The entire crew were *certain* they were over McMurdo Sound, and as soon as they weren't certain about being visual they elected to attempt an escape.
There's a reason that Chippindale's attitude of the buck stopping with the Captain regardless of the circumstances died off in the early '80s and that every successful accident investigatory agency has since used Mahon's deductions as a blueprint, and that reason is the inescapable fact that with airlines becoming multi-billion dollar conglomerates, the chain of responsibility becomes more complex.
The only person that knew they were headed into Lewis Bay rather than McMurdo Sound at the time of the accident was Chief Navigator Hewitt, and he was in his office in Auckland at the time.
The ability for Lewis Bay to appear very similar to McMurdo Sound is an unfortunate coincidence of topology, distance and perspective. Certainly something that a pilot headed down there for the first time would not know about - it even seemed to convince the late Peter Mulgrew.
There's another aspect to this that I'd forgotten about, by the way. ANZ was limited in terms of liability for the lives lost by international agreement. However NZCA was not, and if it became a matter of legal record that NZCA were in any way responsible for the loss of TE901, then it had the potential to bankrupt the Muldoon government. Chippindale may not have been aware of this, but you can bet his bosses were.