Erebus 25 years on

[pakeha-boy]

ampam...the post was not directed at you personally,....but there are victims in any tradgedy of this nature....how can there not be????.....justified or not,these are the consequences that prevail.....25 yrs later we can still debate the merits(or argue) ...........Gary Parata...stated you cannot argue the facts,only the way they are presented... I would agree 100%.....my only hope is that we dont distort the facts to suit our own arguments .....but take them as they are ........what was said and done will and can be manipulated into many versions..........

For me personally,the best thing we can do by anybody is to ,at least present everybodys role in this accident,prove their were cockups,made by all,(and in my view there were)and resolve these issues....

[ampan]

I appreciate the sentiment, Pakeha Boy, but you only need to read the whole of this thread to know that everyone has picked the side they're on and that this thing has to go right down to the wire. The reason for this is that the union, in my opinion, decided to go for AirNZ's neck before the Royal Commission - and AirNZ didn't appear to see it coming (yet another c8ck-up).

Let's get right to the point: Did Captain S., under pressure from the union, lie when he gave evidence under oath that the two briefing officers told him that the nav track went down McMurdo Sound, rather than over Erebus?

(Any howls of "No!" should contain an explanation as to why Captain S. could possibly have thought that the waypoint might have been in the wrong position. If he had been told, at the briefing, that the nav track went down McMurdo Sound, then he would have expected to find the waypoint in McMurdo Sound - which is where it was, and which was where he found it. Nothing unusual to report, methinks. So perhaps Captain S, in fact, was told that the nav track went over Erebus. If so, then so was Captain Collins, because they both attended the same briefing.)

[Brian Abraham]

ampan - your point about the ANZ employees is well taken. Unfortunately in any event of this nature a lot of people become collateral casualties to those losing their lives. I personally know a young man who Esso attempted to blame as the sole cause of an explosion in a gas plant which cost some lives and injuries to others. It took a Royal Commission to clear his name (the usual organisational failures were found to be the cause - lack of training, tardy maintenance, superficial auditing etc etc). In the mean time (not forgeting those who died or were injured) his life, marriage etc etc has been totally destroyed, and nor would you believe the machinations that took place with regard to personal interest. But then, can you blame people for looking out for number one? Nothing I have read regarding this unfortunate accident would surprise me if it were found to be fact (eg perjury by some). Is it possible that PM Muldoon influenced in some way Mr Chippendales report? The PM was not known to be a shrinking violet. The PM has the nations, and the airlines since it was government owned, best interest at heart (if we forget for the moment any embarassment to the government itself for a moment). I don't mean to suggest for one moment that is what did take place, but it is a possibility and has happened in the past. When saying that I have knowledge of one government employee who was threatened to be cashiered minus his pension if he did not shut up in the media when he was fighting a rear guard action to retain a capability within the nation, and save the jobs of many. I have little doubt that his early death had much to do with the battle fought.

Sorry to go some what OT. PB - History is old, and repeats itself. The fact is, we don't know what the real facts are (witness what was/was not surposedly said at the briefing) and anyones particular view is nothing more than conjecture really. And thats why these discussions will continue.

Edited to add.

All I'm saying is that you don't go down until you know where you are.

ampan - I know where your coming from with the statement but as in my post above I tried to make the case that if Captain Collins and crew were in VMC above the LSALT were they not entitled to make the descent whilst maintaining VMC. The necessity of knowing where you are when flying VFR is not an absolute, because VMC presurposes that you can see the furniture and take the requisite action to avoid hitting same. If you can't see (whiteout - something that Collins had absolutely no experience of) the furniture though........................

[prospector]

Brian Abraham,

"They were way in over their heads through having no experience and lack of training in polar operations. As Donald Rumsfeld famously said, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” The shame of it all is that a repository of knowledge was readily available just down the street, so to speak, in Christchurch."
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" Air New Zealand and NZALPA went to some lengths to ensure that their Senior Pilots and members were seen as professionals , who knew it all and did not therefore need to seek advice from elsewhere, such as the RNZAF,USAF,USN or the Division"."

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Perhaps you c an see where Bob Thomson was coming from when he published these comments.

[Desert Dingo]

ampan:
Welcome to the debate. It is nice to see someone advancing logical arguments with some facts to support their conclusions .
You say (#223)

As to the crew's certainty of their position, there is one piece of evidence that is never referred to. Just before the Ground Proximity Warning System sounded, the captain said "We're 26 miles north. We'll have to climb out of this." The first officer, seated in the right-hand seat, says "It's clear to the right and ahead. You're clear to turn right. There's no high ground if you do a 180." The captain responds "No. Negative." At this point, the GPWS sounds, the captain calls for go-around power and there is a sudden manual application of LEFT rudder.

No-one, including Mahon (who never referred to this evidence), has explained why a pilot who is certain he is in the centre of McMurdo Sound would decide to turn left to climb out, because Erebus and Mount Bird would be to the left. The obvious manoeuvre was the right turn that had been expressly suggested by the first officer. The first officer, of course, was wrong. A right turn would have produced a collision with the cloud-covered Mount Bird - and the captain, in the final seconds of the flight, appeared to have some appreciation of there being danger to the right. And when the GPWS sounds, there is an immediate attempt to climb out, rather than any reference the possibility of a false alarm. None of this is consistent with the crew being certain that they were in McMurdo Sound.

Justice Mahon picked up on this inconsistency, and although he never put it in his report for some very good reasons, he later explains what really happened in his book “Verdict on Erebus” chapter XXVII

It is all about pre-conceived ideas and trying to make the evidence fit the theory.

The pre-conceived idea was that the crew had been flying in poor visibility, suddenly saw the mountain in front of them, and attempted a violent evasive maneuver. Mahon could not reconcile this with the CVR’s “Joe Cool” attitude of the pilots with absolutely no sudden exclamations or expression of alarm.

Mahon then looked at two very significant pieces of information

• He had expert opinion that such violent rudder travel could not have been caused by pilot input.
• He noticed a cautionary note that auto-pilot data had some doubtful information because of a break in the tape.

Shift the synchronisation by a few seconds and a completely different picture emerges.
The break in the tape had caused difficulty synchronizing the FDR and CVR events.. The transcriber, acting in perfectly good faith, believing that there must have been at this point a fault in the electronic readout sequence moved the synchronisation to match the go-around power call and what was obviously (to him) a panic evasive maneuver.

Put the FDR/CVR synchronisation back to its original position and you now have:

The wing rocking was caused by HDG SEL being pulled and the aircraft starting to turn right to the previously selected heading. Then when HDG SEL was turned to straight ahead the aircraft rolled to the left to correct.

Impact then occurred in a left wing down attitude so the #1 engine hit first and caused the aircraft to slew violently to the left .

There was also a violent movement of up elevator at the same time as a pitch attitude change from 5 to 11 degrees nose up

Now we can have control surface deflections being caused by the heading and attitude changes (inertia etc) which is the exact reverse of what had been assumed.

This is supported by the fact that there was no aileron/spoiler deflection with the supposed panic left turn.( Pilot not bothering to use ailerons in a rapid turn?) However this is consistent with an impact almost wings level, slewing left and the aircraft pitching up as it slid up the slope.

Thus when you say

At this point, the GPWS sounds, the captain calls for go-around power and there is a sudden manual application of LEFT rudder.

It contains a significant error. The two events did not occur at the same time. The call for go-around power was before impact; the rudder deflection was after (during) the impact and it was not a manual input.

From all this it becomes obvious that

• The crew never saw any terrain ahead of them.
• There was no panic evasion manouvre attempted.

So your question

…. why a pilot who is certain he is in the centre of McMurdo Sound would decide to turn left to climb out, because Erebus and Mount Bird would be to the left.

… is moot. They did not decide to turn left.

Mahon says:

The mistake they made was to first postulate what they thought had happened, and then treat all information which did not fit their theory as being not correct.
So here we had this investigatory defect revealed in startling form. The transcribers disregarded the simple facts which the 'black box' was telling them and substituted their own version of what it was trying to say.

You might not have a very high opinion of Mahon, but in the example above he certainly managed to resolve the problem you were having with some of the evidence.


(edited for crappy grammar)

[ampan]

I've just read pages 279-284 of Mahon's book, D. Dingo. The honourable gentleman makes what appears to be a very good point.

Pages 199-203 are less distinguished.

[SR71]

On a slight tangent although some might be able to see where I'm going with this...

(I don't have any experience with polar grid navigation....)

Can someone explain to me how it is possible that the track from Cape Hallet to McMurdo on the two flight plans on Pg 72/73 of Mahon's book can only differ by 0.4 degrees (i.e. the difference between 188.9 and 188.5) when, if you evaluate the trigonometry, bearing in mind the east west distance between the two positions of McMurdo is 27.1 nm, and it is 336 nm between Cape Hallet to McMurdo, this would suggest a rather higher difference between the two tracks between the points, and depending on the wind, a significant(?) difference in heading required to reach either point?

I'm obviously missing something....

[Brian Abraham]

Air New Zealand and NZALPA went to some lengths to ensure that their Senior Pilots and members were seen as professionals , who knew it all and did not therefore need to seek advice from elsewhere, such as the RNZAF,USAF,USN or the Division

prospecror - the "We invented aviation" syndrome can be found in many a organisation, and usually results in some awful mess eventually.

[Desert Dingo]

Tracks

SR71
Might be "Great Circle Magic'
Going from A to B, the track leaving A will be different to the one entering B. Some flight plans will show both. Spherical trig can really hurt your brain.
Plane geometry no longer applies.

However, you may have discovered another flight plan error.
I have just run the co-ordinated through an on-line GC calculator and get
191.4 / 343 nm
187.0 / 336 nm
which would be more to your liking.


(BTW, flight plans intended for NAV systems don't usually bother to calculate a wind corrected heading. It is left to the box to use whatever heading it needs to maintain the desired track. It just nails the track and doesn't care too much what the actual heading turns out to be.)

Interesting to see that the track and distances on each flight plan are damn near identical. Even less reason to expect Captain Collins to "spot the difference" as some say he should have.

[prospector]

Desert Dingo,

Could you explain to me, logically, why it is when the crew requests descent VMC, accepts responsibility for their own terrain separation, and then flies into a mountain, they are devoid of any responsibility for that action?
You have come up with many thousands of words to get around this very basic fact, they ACCEPTED RESPONSIBILITY for their own terrain separation.

[ampan]

He'll argue that the crew was duped into accepting such responsibility, Prospector - by the changed co-ordinates and by their ignorance of sector whiteout.

We're both on the same side here, and we both want to establish that Mahon's total exoneration of the crew was wrong. So we have to identify a reasonably clear-cut error.

You can divide the flight into two parts: (1) Above the cloudbase (with hole) at 18000 feet. (2) Below the cloud base.

Below the cloudbase, things get very complicated, with a sector whiteout and the wrong nav track. They should have IDed Beaufort Island, but they were probably extremely busy doing the orbits and dealing with the communication problems. So it's going to be very hard for you and I to pinpoint a clear-cut error that occurred below the cloudbase.

It's very different story above the cloudbase - which is why I have pointed to the decision to descend through the hole without first verifying their position. D. Dingo, try as he might, will not be able to suggest that the crew were duped into making that decision.

So could you give me a hand in dealing with Brian Abraham's argument that they were entitled to descend through the hole VMC, even though they had yet to verify their position?

[prospector]

Perhaps one can see the why of it from this passage from John King's publication.

"The one exception was Captain Roger Dalziells flight which, because of unfavourable McMurdo weather, took the alternative sightseeing route over the South Magnetic pole, diverting before even reaching the specified decision point of Cape Hallet. Its unpopularity with the passengers, however, was a likely factor in making Captain Collins more determined to press on to McMurdo when conditions were MARGINAL and, according to company instructions, WELL BELOW minima for the area.

Then to the information supplied to the crew.

The actual track and distance chart supplied to flight crews was a subject of considerable debate during the enquiry. Pilots giving evidence on behalf of NZALPA insisted it was exhibit 164, but Joe Lawton in his evidence said that three copies of Annex J of the Chippendale report which clearly showed the Southern waypoint as being Williams field, had been placed in the aircraft documents. From the evidence given, none of the pilots recalled definitely using either exhibit 164 or Annex J. Also found in the wreckage was exhibit 78, a copy of the NV90 computer printout structured as a skeleton flight plan with the waypoint names, tracks and distances, BUT THAT WAS NEVER ELABORATED ON DURING THE ENQUIRY.

Weighing the evidence presented before him-and the credibility of the witnesses themselves, Peter Mahon concluded that exhibit 164 was the track and distance chart supplied to Antarctic crews, and annex J was something the airline would rather had been found in the cockpit of the wrecked DC10. THAT CONCLUSION WAS ONE OF MANY LATER DISMISSED AT BOTH THE COURT OF APPEAL AND PRIVY COUNCIL HEARINGS.

Also
"The union showed more cohesion too, "The NZALPA evidence was all clearly rehearsed,' declares Ian Gemmel, who had visited all the other Antarctic pilots with chief accidents inspector Ron Chippendale when he was gathering evidence for his report. Their evidence differed from the interviews with Chippendale. Their answers were not the same as given to the Court of Inquiry, under oath, but they all agreed with the NZALPA's stance. NZALPA's plan was to get the pilot of the hook. They socialised with the judge during and after the case.

As for the VMC descent, nowhere in the company or CAA requirements for descent is VMC descent an option, it is clearly understood that any descent was to be inside the parameters as laid down and printed many times on this thread, not one of these requirements were met.

Requirement 4. was
Descent to be coordinated with local radar as they may have other traffic in the area.

My interpretation of this requirement would be first of all the flight would have had to have been identified on radar, and positon clearly established, before McMurdo radar could maintain separation between them and any other traffic.

[ampan]

Thanks, Prospector. "Don't go down until you know where you are" might express things a little too simply. What about "Don't go down to where the ground comes up, until you know where you are". At 20000 feet with cloudbase at 17000 and high ground at 13000, you can go through the hole. At 18000 feet with cloudbase at 10000, you can't, until you've verified your position. If the hole lets you see enough of the ground to do so, fine. But in this case, it didn't. So the decision to descend without the radar fix was an error, in my opinion.

[SR71]

Dingo & co.,

I'm thinking out loud somewhat....

Regardless of whether or not the flightdeck crew of 901 were or were not told the track went over Erebus, they were clearly operating this particular flight on the assumption that it didn't.

I would expect the difference in tracks to be ~5 degrees as your calculation suggests.

An error in track of ~5 degrees is arguably one that you might notice. I was mucking around today myself with my NAV display on the way home trying to figure out whether I thought I'd appreciate an error of such a magnitude myself. I fly a dual IRS, FMC equipped EFIS a/c which we use predominantly in a track up mode.

I totally agree that the heading is almost irrelevant when navigating in such a fashion but from a chart plotting point of view, assuming the wind vector was relatively constant along the track, you'd expect a particular heading to attain that track.

I've no idea whether the crew had the predicted met when they plotted their route, but nevertheless, if they did, they'd no doubt have calculated a heading to achieve that. Of course, you could ascribe any error in that heading to a different wind vector, so arguably this isn't necessarily going to alert you to an error in the flightplan.

However, if the aircraft is tracking 192 instead of 187?

I'll have to get to the bottom of that flightplan....

It is my understanding that the aircraft passed over Cape Hallet in clear air, so after a 2000 nm passage across the southern ocean, it was clear to the crew that the IRS's weren't drifting substantially.

To suggest that within the next 300 miles they suddenly started drifting to an extent such that you'd be worried about undertaking a VMC let down in an area the size of McMurdo Sound without a radio/radar fix seems a little unreasonable to me.

(And the idea that because they couldn't establish VHF comms with Ice Tower should have alerted them to the fact that there was rock between them and the antenna is completely unreasonable in my opinion. Even in Europe establishing VHF comms, where ground stations are as common as churches, can be a pain...and not because there is rock in the way.)

As for their responsibility for terrain seperation, they flew into the mountain in NAV mode.

These guys were ultimately wrong about their position but they weren't unsure about it...if thats not a contradiction. Seems to me, these guys saw that nav track as their security in unfamiliar terrain, hence their diligence in re-engaging the mode.

I'm with Brian Abraham on this. I just can't see these guys did anything unreasonable in the circumstances. They weren't randomly manoeuvering around the sky in HDG SLT. Even if they were unsure of their position whilst doing this, at the point they re-enagaged NAV mode, that ambiguity in their mind surely vanished?

But, of course, the nav track was wrong.

My previous post asked the question about what we, as pilots, are entitled to assume about our aircraft before we go flying?

A sensible flightplan has to be one of them.

[pakeha-boy]

SR 71....no mate,they didnt do anything unreasonable.....they only flew into a mountain.....I dont believe this

whether they were in Nav or Hdg mode,does not negate the fact that they were responsible for the safe conduct of that flight .....VMC or IMC...

There have been many CFIT incidents,did those crews do anything unreasonable?....this was not your normal daily AIRNZ excursion.......if your intent is not to blame the crew.....they surely then, must be held responsible for at least some of the outcome.

[prospector]

SR71,
(And the idea that because they couldn't establish VHF comms with Ice Tower should have alerted them to the fact that there was rock between them and the antenna is completely unreasonable in my opinion. Even in Europe establishing VHF comms, where ground stations are as common as churches, can be a pain...and not because there is rock in the way.)

Different situation entirely, not only no VHF, but no TACAN and no return on McMurdo radar either, surely that should have started alarm bells ringing.

[Brian Abraham]

prospector

Could you explain to me, logically, why it is when the crew requests descent VMC, accepts responsibility for their own terrain separation, and then flies into a mountain, they are devoid of any responsibility for that action?
You have come up with many thousands of words to get around this very basic fact, they ACCEPTED RESPONSIBILITY for their own terrain separation.

Flying VFR they certainly did accept responsibility for their own terrain seperation, but the problem is THEY HAD NO TRAINING OR EXPERIENCE IN POLAR OPERATIONS, particularly in regard to the white out phenonema. Are they then held to be at fault for not knowing what they don't know.

An analogy in my mind, as to the question of responsibily, is the British Airways 747 complete (all four engines) failure in the volcanic cloud over Indonesia. Assume for a moment that they had been unable to get a restart and ended up ditching (was night) with a great loss of life. Would we be saying the crew were responsible for the accident? They had, after all, ended up crashing, what up to a few moments before, was a perfectly serviceable aircraft, and it was their own actions, or inactions, as the case may be, that resulted in the loss of aircraft and loss of life. I would venture to say that had any helicopter pilot with experience of night flying in dust been on the flight deck he would have instantly twigged as to what was going on and 180'ed out of there. Why, because the rotors, travelling as they do at about .7 Mach, put up a very spectacular light show when operating at night in dust. Can we then blame the crew for experiencing something and not reacting properly to some thing that is out side their experience, training and knowledge base. To my mind, definately not.

My interpretation of this requirement would be first of all the flight would have had to have been identified on radar, and positon clearly established, before McMurdo radar could maintain separation between them and any other traffic.

There was no requirement for the aircraft to be radar identified. It was a requirement that had existed previously, but had been removed. Also, it was not McMurdo's role to maintain separation from other traffic, they had no controlling function. Their role was merely one of co-ordination as pointed out in my previous post.

[SR71]

pakeha-boy,

Don't forget the sector white-out....

Tomorrow when you drive to work and you crash into something you didn't or couldn't see, are you responsible?

When your insurance company says, "You should have known it was going to be there!", tell me you won't be p***ed off? Especially if it was a 911.



I don't have an axe to grind one way or the other. I'm not a Kiwi with connections one way or the other. Just a professional pilot trying to make sense of an accident which I believe I probably would have had if I'd been at the controls.

I'm reserving judgement, though, as I'm only partially acquainted with the issues unlike many of the distinguished contributors here.

prospector,

With the benefit of hindsight (i.e., your extensive research), it appears that your mindset now makes it difficult for you to understand the crew's mindset?

Was it any more unreasonable to believe that locking back onto the nav track would keep them safe than to believe that sporadic VHF comms, no DME (The NDB was no longer operational, perhaps the TACAN was experiencing a temporary non-NOTAMed outage?) or radar identification meant Erebus was in the line of sight?

I'm not sure even with the luxury of time to reflect...

[jack red]

.....they only flew into a mountain.....

You'll do that if incorrect co-ordinates are fed into your navigation equipment !

[prospector]

SR71/ Brian Abraham,

''Flying VFR they certainly did accept responsibility for their own terrain seperation, but the problem is THEY HAD NO TRAINING OR EXPERIENCE IN POLAR OPERATIONS, particularly in regard to the white out phenonema. Are they then held to be at fault for not knowing what they don't know."

Why can you not see, it was because of this situation, no Antarctic experience, that such specific descent instructions were part of their brief. It was to prevent just such an event from occuring.

By the way they were VMC not VFR.

"they had no controlling function. Their role was merely one of co-ordination as pointed out in my previous post."

Why then was a case taken in Washington DC in front of Judge Harold Greene to try to apportion blame to the Air Traffic Controllers for not telling the crew that Erebus was in their way, is that the job of a Co-ordinator???, why are they referred to in all the documentation as Air Traffic Controllers.?

FO Yes 901, that would be handy. We'd like to descend and maintain flight level one six zero.
MC Kiwi 901, Mac Centre descend and maintain flight level one six zero.

Sounds like a controller to me

And in the end, basically, if I was flying a DC10 at something above 260 kts, over a piece of ground I had never been to before, at 1490ft or whatever, I would want far more confirmation of my position than this crew had.