Air New Zealand cocked it up.
Collins cocked it up.
Then a lot of people began behaving poorly.
That's it boys and girls........they both cocked it up. Neither party comes out of it looking good and it's that simple.
For anyone to argue that Collins didn't cock it up is ludicrous . Even supposing the minimum heights weren't 16,000ft for IMC and 6000ft VMC..........when was it ever a good idea to be at 1500ft doing 260kts clean in a transport jet full of pax ? Anyone ?.......Para377?...... If they were over a flat brown desert with a perfectly defined horizon to a bright blue sky it still would be a bad decision to do 260kts , 1500ft, clean and full of pax.....but they weren't, it was worse than that.
One of the lowest blows in this saga IMO was Holmes's denigration of Chipendales character 12 months after he died. It was just so gutless.
Anyway, back to it chaps.