Despite repeated calls here of late to let 'sleeping dogs lie' etc., I again contend that there will be grounds for review for many years to come. Though others will deride, if I have learned anything of life, it is that truth is more often than not an artefact. Truth is constructed. That being so, the line between fact and opinion becomes blurred. We need to remember that much of the time opinions slip and slide around to become stories that people make up, and are seduced into believing.
Bearing this in mind, and hypothesising for a moment, it is as well when a matter as crucial as say an expert revisionist's post mortem on Erebus is concerned, to be judiciously guarded, hesitant even, before advancing opinion or comment on his published work. Sir Richard Williams, the First World War Australian Flying Corp pilot who rose to the rank of Air Marshal, (Chief of Air Staff and later Director-General of Civil Aviation), titled his autobiography 'These are Facts', a bizarre, bumptious, brave banner to run with. How stern. How uncompromising. Not a little startling that a man in his exhaulted position, who'd experienced so much, could admit of no shades between black and white. With Erebus, those who purport to see the broad picture, trot out nevertheless their Readers' Digest condensed version, (at times tainted with temerity, gross presumption even), that 'a' followed by 'b', followed by 'c' is all there is to know and all you need to know. Purblind they are and purblind they will ever be. Moreover, they are woefully unaware that where you find that events have been selected or omitted, that people involved have been given the roles of heroes or villains, interpretation is unavoidable. This is all to the good, so long as the interpretations are credible.
There has probably been no other accident in air transport history that equals this one in terms of protracted, unresolved debate, combined with strident polarised opinion, though the R101 story with all its attendant cover-up and intrigue does invite comparison. That said, when it comes down to it, one of the overlays is a natural, very human fascination with the multifarious strands of the story. So in these cases, when high drama is evoked, as the specifics of terrible misfortune unfold, many are the comparisons that may be drawn, such as the Titanic, the Hindenburg and Space Shuttle Challenger.
What befell TE901 is no less complex, no less intriguing. It will continue to exercise curious minds while life as we know it falters on. He who would set out to comprehensively write the story afresh is of course obliged to be as accurate, as scrupulous, as he possibly can. He will have borrowed large parts of his account from actual people who actually lived. He owes them his best shot at the truth. He is a kind of crook if he doesn't pay up.