Brian Abraham
There are always going to be differences of opinion depending on how you weight outcomes. If you drive through a red light you might get a warning, you might get a fine. If you drive through a red light and kill someone you will be done for dangerous driving causing death. Why? What changed?
Police and ambulances drive through red lights because they need to. Collins did not need to "drive through a red light", but did so; the consequences were catastrophic.
I have not changed my opinion from the day of the crash. AirNZ was out of its depth and Collins was a very stupid man. He was not asked to take the aircraft down the way he did. That is the point. Had he been asked to do so that would have been an entirely different matter.
Had he called operations in Auckland and said he was at 1500ft about to head to "McMurdo" he would have been asked if he was he out of his mind.
You can make all the excuses you like but at the end of the day they are only excuses. Collins cannot be exonerated by parliament, which is what the discussion here in NZ is about. It would be absurd.
I am now at Warbirds over Wanaka and if I can find one single pilot who thinks otherwise I'll let you know.
And yes, you can know SOMETHING when you don't know. You can know you THAT don't know and stick to what you do know. Which is why I didn't fly into Franz Josef Glacier and around Mt Cook coming down the West Coast. I am an old pilot who wants to keep out of trouble.
Collins went looking for trouble and he found it. Fact.