Hi experts,
recently came across Mahon's book in a 2nd hand store.
Interested upon finishing to see other points of view, original details etc and found my way to erebus.co.nz where I read the Chippendale and Mahon reports then found my way here and have read various threads including this one in full.
I now find I want to spend some more effort to tidy some loose ends though I fear this may be the end of the road.
Any help with the following will be greatly appreciated:
1) is there now online transcripts of the royal commission evidence? For example the link
http://nz.briefcase.yahoo.com/[email protected] from ampans post re "PDF files of the evidence of the pilots who were briefed by Capt Wilson" doesn't work now.
2) What was SOP for pilots re- navigating and cross-checking INS? Was Collins expected to confirm each leg was heading where he expected / to confirm exactly where it was headed? Was it a SOP to check that if going down? I think I may have read it was but only if landing and note also desert-dingo said "Should have verified waypoint by plotting on a chart. No. The company SOPs are to check waypoint entries against flight plan data". It just seems so obvious, perhaps especially in hindsight, that you should.
3) The issue of Simpson vs Johnson, the 27 miles vs the 2 miles between the NDB and TACAN, is really difficult (and noted by Mahon who said it was very confusing the last part of the waypoint changing saga). Johnson's position seems to be Simpson didn't mention a 27 mile difference - how else could it be explained that he thought it was a 2 mile difference? Simpsons story seems to have been well assessed by ampan when he described Simpson calling up to ask for the other pilots to be informed Simpson couldn't tell the difference between 27 and 10 miles when looking at a map. Seems this was an area the commission should have probed hard at.
4) It was speculated that "McMurdo" was used to disguise that the track was over the volcano as the US would have objected. Question then is what was the situation when it orginally did go over Erebus? Was the US informed then? Did they not object?
5) and just a point of interest that came up. How did INS account for wind in making its assessments? Does it get forecaste conditions input?
Perhaps I should have started another thread but it seems to me having one thread more convenient.