Erebus 25 years on

[3 Holer]

That's why Justice Peter Mahon maintains his good name and reputation to this day and the "Others" can only keep banging on about visual approaches, MSA's and their total ignorance about Human Factors.

[prospector]

Perhaps if you could answer a simple aviation related question, as posed to you a few posts back, rather than "banging on" about the human factors??? .

Have you any idea what requesting and getting a VMC descent entails? You take on responsibility for your own terrain and traffic avoidance. As has been shown in this thread many times, changing the waypoint was sloppy operating but was not the cause of the disaster.

[PapaHotel6]

..................and the ONLY reason a mountain was in the way was because some one changed the final co-ordinates of the route without telling the crew!

You forgot to add 3 Holer that immediately prior to the flight the crew were given the preflight planning folder contained the strip map with the track going down the route Captain Collins expected. Oh, and the nav department didn't give the required Ops Flash (I think it was called, can't be bothered looking it up right now) signifying that a change had been made to the flight plan.

For the love of Heaven. Even if the Chief of the navigation section himself had walked out to NZP that morning, looked Jim Collins in the eye and told him "I've programmed your aircraft to fly down McMurdo Sound", Collins still would not have been justified in descending in the manner he did in the conditions he had.

I would suggest you go back over the many posts in this forum, the docu/drama that you commend has very little credibility to many who have a good knowledge of what in fact caused this disaster.

I would second that. The Mahon/Vette premise is extremely believable to those with little or no aviation knowledge - and I don't mean that to be nearly as patronising as it sounds. I myself believed it for many years until I a) became a pilot b) studied things deeper and c) took emotion out of the equation.

Two who showed immense fortitude of character and great dignity were the widows of the two pilots

Ann Cassin certainly, but I don't think the same can be said of Maria Collins unfortunately. Her presence in the media, denouncing of Chippindale etc. and relentless drive to "clear her husband's name" while understandable hasn't been particularly dignified, and as I said earlier, is somewhat disrespectful to the families of the other 256.

That's why Justice Peter Mahon maintains his good name and reputation to this day

How can you say this with a straight face? The NZ Court of Appeal and the Privy Council unequivocally denounced him. Sir Geoffrey Palmer, himself no slouch in the legal field, said Mahon "did many great things in his career, but the Erebus report was not one of them".

[3 Holer]

Captain Collins did take responsibility for his own terrain clearance. The problem was Erebus was not supposed to be there (BUT it was there compliments of the Navigation section who changed the route and NEVER TOLD the crew). The reason it wasn't seen was because of a visual illusion known as whiteout!

This has been done to death Mate, get with the program, please.

[Anotherday]

You need to understand MSA. Collins didn't, if he had half a clue about operating an aircraft to the SOPs he wouldn't have descended. Air NZ were smart enough to know you couldn't just throw an aircraft into a cloud break.
He didn't even have Nav info off mcmurdo.
He should have flown the aircraft as he was paid to do and on the day in those conditions not descended.

You need to read the report.

The Nav section didn't plot a course below area MSA, there was nothing unsafe about the route they gave him on the day.

So the Nav section should have said "if you decide to throw airmanship and common sense out the window and dispense with the requirements of the SOP and laugh at the US military who have lost plenty of aircraft in the area while operating down there for the last 50 years because on the basis of your experience flying a hundred flights to and from LA you know best then....."

[PapaHotel6]

And I say again............ the INS is not designed for terrain avoidance.... if it were; it'd be possible to fly from AKL right onto short final at ZQN with one push of a button.

The Nav section didn't plot a course below area MSA, there was nothing unsafe about the route they gave him on the day.

People need to read this over and over until it sinks in.

[prospector]

Captain Collins did take responsibility for his own terrain clearance. The problem was Erebus was not supposed to be there

You cannot be serious!!! Erebus has been in exactly the same position for a very long time.

[Cazalet33]

Erebus has been in exactly the same position for a very long time.

So has McMurdo Sound.

That is/was the problem.

He thought he had been briefed to fly down the Sound, not into the Bay.

So had the other crew at the same briefing.

That's why they (the surviving crew of the same briefing) were surprised to see the 26 mile cross-track 'error' on the INS when they found where they were in a less malign form of 'VMC', on a similarly briefed flight.

Look at the videos, please.

[PapaHotel6]

That's why they (the surviving crew of the same briefing) were surprised to see the 26 mile cross-track 'error' on the INS when they found where they were in a less malign form of 'VMC', on a similarly briefed flight

And yet this didn't cause an outcry. Barely a murmur. But if the safety of the flight depended on the INS track, don't you think it should have?

[Cazalet33]

I would suggest you go back over the many posts in this forum

I have done so. Just as I have read every word of the Chippindale and Mahon reports.

That's why I commended both of the lengthy videos to the forum.

That's why I give links to both videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=xyWvOI_MD-Q

and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=2ivz6lAJwJ8

They are both worth watching, both to to those who care about the truth of what actually happened and to those who don't.

[Cazalet33]

And yet this didn't cause an outcry. Barely a murmur. But if the safety of the flight depended on the INS track, don't you think it should have?

Yes, I do.

I think the safety culture of the airline on those gigs was structurally phuqed up. There was a complacency which almost inevitably would lead to a high risk of disaster.

[Anotherday]

Still amazed someone could fly for 4 hrs on an early era IRS with no GPS or DME updating, make up an uncertified approach and fly down to well below MSA. Drift on those old IRS must have been in the order of 3-6 nm an hour. So doing the homemade IRS letdown may have put him 12-24 miles off apparent track anyway with the IRS still within tolerances. And without DME updating who knew where they actually were.
Another reason why AirNZ attached so many preconditions to descending below MSA which the crew ignored.
I'm impressed so many on here would have happily done the same.

[Cazalet33]

The crew did not do what previous crews had not done with the same, or similar, briefings. Other than getting suckered in to the sector whiteout thing, that is.

Descending to low level was quite common on those gigs.

[prospector]

both to to those who care about the truth of what actually happened

Are you still trying to convince anyone that this captain could fly a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the side of a mountain that everybody knew was there, by carrying out a descent procedure that had plucked out of the air, by a captain who had never been to the Antarctic before, and after being advised that the weather conditions were below those required for the approved cloud break procedure, in fact he was advised that the weather conditions were no good for sight seeing at all, and after all this is still blameless??

Descending to low level was quite common on those gigs.

Yes it was, but that does not make it legal, and as CAA testified after, they had no knowledge of these breaches of altitude restrictions. The altitude restrictions were there because the Airline was given approval to use crews who had no previous experience down to the ice, which went against the requirements of all the other operators USAF, USN,RNZAF who had much experience operating down there.

Cazalet33, I suggest you read Gordon Vette's Impact Erebus. Have a look at the diagrams on page 46 and 47. If this crew was on the ball, and they thought they were going down McMurdo Sound, why was it not noticed they were on the wrong side of Beaufort Island? Met conditions at that point were certainly VMC, there are passenger photo's retrieved from the wreck clearly showing Beaufort Island.

[27/09]

Collins still would not have been justified in descending in the manner he did in the conditions he had.

PapaHotel6; What conditions did Captain Collins have when he descended? More to the point what conditions did he think he had.

[27/09]

Still amazed someone could fly for 4 hrs on an early era IRS with no GPS or DME updating, make up an uncertified approach and fly down to well below MSA. Drift on those old IRS must have been in the order of 3-6 nm an hour. So doing the homemade IRS letdown may have put him 12-24 miles off apparent track anyway with the IRS still within tolerances. And without DME updating who knew where they actually were.

Anotherday; I have no experience with INS/IRS systems on the DC10 but I do recall hearing they were very accurate, with crews expecting to be very close to track after a trans Pacific flight, certainly much much more accurate than you have supposed.

It's been a while since I read anything about this accident but IIRC the crew had identified their track visually, all be it incorrectly by mistakenly identifying similar looking landmarks. They were in their mind where they expected to be.

A letdown as you describe it infers descent to get below cloud. My recollection of the transcripts is the crew thought they were in VMC.

[prospector]

megan,

So what were the stipulated VMC limits?

''

Found the reference, 20km was the required vis for any VMC flight during these operations. Just how one established that one had 20km vis I do not know.

[Dick Smith]

Prospector. You are correct re being on the wrong side of Beaufort Island. Photos recovered showed the island was clearly indentifiable.

What is doubly strange is that Antarctic veteran and close friend of Ed Hillary , Peter Mulgrew was on the flight deck and did not mention that they were clearly on the east of the island not the west .

Re accuracy of the INS. On the Qantas flights I checked the accuracy when we overflew at low altitude indentifiable places like Mawsons Hut or Cape Adare. The INS was within a mile at these locations.

[3 Holer]

Peter Mulgrew was on the flight deck and did not mention that they were clearly on the east of the island not the west .

How do you know he didn't Dick?

[compressor stall]

[quote]. Just how one established that one had 20km vis I do not know.[\quote]

Looking out the right windows they could see the dry valleys. Much more than 20km.