I’m glad that oggers in #1241 has referred to Beaufort Island because it provides a good demonstration the sort of person that Mahon actually was. In his report, he dealt with the issue quite briefly, in less than a page (pages 115 & 118):
“The next allegation was that the flight crew made a serious and inexplicable error in not identifying Beaufort Island during the course of the two orbits. It was alleged that the position of Beaufort Island would have indicated to the flight crew that they were on the eastern side of the island …”
“[B]ecauseCaptain Collins believed that his nav track was taking him down the centre of McMurdo Sound, no one on the flight deck would ever identify any island on or near their path as being Beaufort Island. … [A]lthough no direct reference is made to the point in the CVR transcript apart from Mr Mulgrew’s remark about “land ahead”, the five persons on the flight deck on the flight deck undoubtedly saw Beaufort Island and mistook it for a different island altogether … Anyhow, in the minds of the crew the island which they must have seen could not possibly have been Beaufort Island, because as previously indicated, the latter landmark would be many miles away in quite a different location.”
From the mid-1980s onwards, Messrs Mahon, Vette and Macfarlane spent significant amounts of their time blowing smoke up eachother’s backsides and urinating in eachother’s pockets. Vette was the first to come out with a book, being ‘Impact Erebus’ in 1983. Mahon wrote a 5-page forward, while MacFarlane contributed a 48-page appendix. The next book was in 1984, with Mahon’s ‘Verdict of Erebus”, which referred approvingly to MacFarlane’s appendix (p247). It was Macfarlane’s turn in 1991, with ‘The Erebus Papers’, the undoubted hero of which was Mahon, with Vette and the author tied for second. Despite the mutual admiration, there were occasions when the three musketeers did not get their stories straight, Beaufort Island being an example. In his report, Mahon clearly concluded that all those on the flight deck, Mulgrew included, saw Beaufort Island but did not recognise it as such. But then Vette contradicted Mahon, probably without even knowing: In Vette’s book, he said that if Mulgrew had seen Beaufort Island, he would have recognised it. Therefore, Vette concluded, Mulgrew did not see Beaufort Island and when he said “land ahead” he was referred to somewhere else. (pages 52 and 53)
Vette’s book would have caused a bit of a problem for Mahon when he came to write his own book in 1984, but not much of one. If, in hindsight, he agreed with Vette, all he had to do was say so. Instead, he constructed an elaborate story that was consistent with Vette’s book but which was presented to the reader as a set of conclusions Mahon reached on his visit to Antarctica in November 1980, which occurred well before he wrote his report. In other words, it wasn’t ‘I’ve changed my mind after reading Vette’s book’. Instead, it was ‘This is what I thought from Day 1.’ From pages 199 to 203 of ‘Verdict on Erebus’:
"But, equally significantly, was the view I had seen from the Hercules of Beaufort Island. Again I had seen exactly what the crew of the DC10 had seen and from the same height and angle of vision. And I thought I had discovered why the crew never identified Beaufort Island, and I was sure now that I knew why Peter Mulgrew had not realised that Beaufort Island was on the wrong side of the aircraft."
...
“But what about Peter Mulgrew? He had been to Antarctica on several occasions. He must have known what Beaufort Island looked like. Why had he not pointed it out to the aircrew? Before we left for Antactica I had been giving this question careful consideration. Was it possible that for some reason , Mulgrew had never seen the island as the air craft passed by it?"
Having described his alleged state of mind before he left for Antarctica, Mahon goes on to refer to the visit itself, where he retraced the track of TE901:
“So as soon as the Hercules commended to roll to the left in completion of its final orbit I had looked forward and to the left at Beaufort Island, and from my positionon the flight deck, which had been Mulgrew’s position, Beaufort Island had immediately disappeared from view as the aircraft banked left at a 25 degree angle. …
“It seemedto me that this … answered one of the major queries of the investigation. Mulgrewhad been to the Antarctic on previous occasions and he would have identified BeaufortIsland without hesitation during the orbiting sequences. But he had not seen it.”
On the author goes, presenting more conclusions allegedly reached in November 1980,none of which appeared in the report written the following year. It then starts to get embarrassing:
“In later days, I though over again what I have just described. I tried to imagine PeterMulgrew making his way forward along the aisle, moving a little slowly with his artificial legs …."
"Perhaps as he neared the flight deck a passenger detained him for a minute or two." [More possible causes of a delay.]
“If only Mulgrew had reached the flight deck two minutes earlier …”
“I could not escape the conclusion that a delay of only two minutes in reaching the flightdeck … had prevented him from averting disaster. And I reflected, as I had done so often before, upon the malignity of the hovering fates which had shadowed throughout its journey the flight path of TE901.”
The question has to be asked as to the sort of person who claims to have formed the above conclusions before writing the following some months later:
“[A]lthoughno direct reference is made to the point in the CVR transcript apart from MrMulgrew’s remark about “land ahead”, the five persons on the flight deck on theflight deck undoubtedly saw Beaufort Island … “
Multi-choice:
- A dishonest person – No such conclusions were reached before Mahon wrote his report.
- A stupid person – Anyone who read both Mahon’s report and his book would see (1) above.
- A vain person – Not capable of admitting that he had changed his mind.
- A pompous jackass – This is how Mahon concluded the finding in his report: “The suggestion of error on the part ofthe flight crew in not identifying Beaufort Island will therefore be seen to bethe result of an apparent confusion on the part of its proponents.”
- All of the above.