Merged: Erebus site launched

[Tarq57]

Tks. My eyes can handle that.

[prospector]

flatfootsam,

You say

"negating the fact that a trained crew flew a functioning DC-10 in clear weather into the side of a mountain."

But in fact

" The weather was reported at McMurdo to be completely overcast at 3,500ft with other cloud layers above, mountain tops in the area were covered in cloud.

Other aircraft in the area reported Ross Island as being completely obscured by cloud".

Mt Erebus is a very significant feature of Ross Island.

Try and stick to fact, was the weather reporting station at McMurdo, and all the other reports from aircraft in the area also all part Of Justice Mahons Conspiracy???
"The FL160 limit and descent procedure you rely on is inconsequential - ipso if the DC-10 had not descended below FL160 it would not have crashed is the same argument as if the DC-10 had not taken off it would not have crashed, ipso facto."

Really?? what is the reason that every airline route has a published MSA, why do they do that if it is inconsequential??

[DozyWannabe]

Regarding the weather, McMurdo was reporting overcast in their vicinity and clear air to the northwest, which the crew worked out would be roughly around Cape Bird according to the CVR. The exact conditions at the time we can only speculate upon, because by the very nature of the location, there was no-one else in the McMurdo Sound/Lewis Bay area (McMurdo Station is, if I recall correctly, positioned to the south of Erebus).

Regarding the rulebook we're banging our heads against here - we need to take into account the fact that the majority of ANZ flights to the Antarctic descended to levels between 3,000 and 1,500 feet. There is no definitive proof of the weather conditions on those flights either, and if your position is such that the regulation should have been followed to the letter, then you should at least concede that ANZ were remiss in not identifying this as a problem and disciplining the pilots concerned. The fact is that they did not - these flights were sold in the company's own literature as "low-level" sightseeing flights, and actively promoted them as such when times were good. The line pilots shared their experiences with each other, and it became a de facto standard to disregard the 6,000ft limit - I wouldn't be surprised if many of the pilots weren't even aware such a limit existed before the accident.

The limit itself was drawn up by Civil Aviation with ANZ's help - it was a special case in the first place, specific to the route, because the route was unique on ANZ's roster. It doesn't even mention clearance to descend below 6,000 feet, which in most cases was suggested by McMurdo, and if the rules were followed as closely as you desire, would be declined on every occasion.

Going back to the conditions for previous flights, again we can only speculate on what they were, as no records were kept. Chippindale says that other flights occurred in "brilliantly clear conditions", but he must himself have been speculating as I'm sure he didn't interview every single pilot that went down there, and even if he did I doubt strongly that they'd have been able to paint an accurate picture of the conditions they were flying in in the months previously. So to say that the crew on this occasion acted contrary to established procedure is disingenuous in the extreme. Also, sector whiteout can occur even in clear conditions, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

The only proven difference between the accident flight and those prior was the switch in co-ordinates. That being the case, if any of those flights (or indeed any of the following flights, had Collins been luckier and his flight returned) had flown the INS waypoints handed out that day, any one of them could have impacted Erebus. Certainly speaking for myself, this is why I think that ascribing the primary cause as pilot error was completely myopic.

Antarctica is a harsh and unforgiving terrain, certainly - and flying in the area definitely requires a degree of care over and above normal operations. But between ANZ, Civil Aviation and the pilots, they got it as close to normal operations as was possible at the time. Maybe they shoudn't have - but this wasn't a small Twin Otter operation bouncing around at low level where everything is at the pilot's risk and discretion, this was a tri-monthly scheduled service that had been performed for around two years. Collins had no reason to expect that he would be in any more danger than his peers, and even given that it would seem he prepared diligently - certainly giving it more attention than any regular scheduled "Auckland to Los Angeles" flight.

Finally, Mahon's report was recognised as an official report into the disaster when it was tabled in the New Zealand Parliament on the 25th of August 1999.

[prospector]

Dozey Wannabe,

(or indeed any of the following flights, had Collins been luckier and his flight returned"

And how many following flights were there?? and just by the by, luck should not have any part of the process of moving people by air, even on a sightseeing flight.

"So to say that the crew on this occasion acted contrary to established procedure is disingenuous in the extreme."

Why?? everybody else came back so something must have been contrary.

As has been stated on this thread a number of times, once that descent below 16,000ft was commenced, this crew was well outside their experience level. That situation should not have been allowed to happen. Why was it allowed to happen?? who demanded that these flights be shared amongst their members in contravention of the wisdom developed by other operators who regularly flew to the Antarctic?? why did not Justice Mahon even mention this fact in his summing up??.

[workingman303]

Regarding the rulebook we're banging our heads against here - we need to take into account the fact that the majority of ANZ flights to the Antarctic descended to levels between 3,000 and 1,500 feet. There is no definitive proof of the weather conditions on those flights either, and if your position is such that the regulation should have been followed to the letter, then you should at least concede that ANZ were remiss in not identifying this as a problem and disciplining the pilots concerned

So you are saying that the other option, because the requirements were so stringent it was unlikely that the aircraft could ever descend so the pax wouldn't have got much of a view so the flights would have been eventually canned. That this option wasn't possible? Are you going to pull out a leaked memorandum showing that crews would be demoted if they didn't bend the rules?

The crew had to break the SOPs that were there in the first place to provide a degree of safety that the company and CAD was happy with.

So why bother having any requirements at all that allowed descent below MSA, why not just say, "Hey, you have flown lots of time to LA you go ahead and descend as you see fit" which is precisely what the crew in this instance did.

Hitting the hill was irrelevant, the cause of the accident was what Chippendale was required to find and that was the crew's decision to descend below MSA.

No-one here is denying that Air NZ's behaviour subsequent to wasn't the greatest but I have yet to hear anyone here say they would have done eactly the same as Collins and crew did given the same set of circumstances.

So Dozywannabee you would have happily busted the SOPs, descended IMC, relied utterly on the aircrafts INS and never actually checked the coordinates and change in heading with each track change as a regular part of your operation?

So we have a dangerous mix of weather conditions, a company SOP's that take this into account, an aircraft that is lost because the SOPs are not applied and the crew are blameless because the weather conditions are hazardous. The SOPs are there because of the weather and somewhere there Collins is paid to make command decisions. I have no idea how Morrie Davis could have forced Collins to descend.

What amazes me is that all Vette did was bring whiteout to the attention of the general flying community, the US military had known about it for years as had most likely any operator flying to Antartica. Except Air NZ was never supposed to get an aircraft into a situation where whiteout could be a factor, the SOPs should have protected the paying public from that.

The only way that Collins can be exonerated is if you say he was way outside his level of experience once he descended and yet this is precisely why the SOPs were written as they were for the Antartica flights.

[ampan]

What was said about the waypoint at the briefing?

flatfootsam: The suicide argument is silly lawyer’s stuff. It’s not a choice between ‘blameless’ and ‘suicidal’. Positioned between the two is ‘negligent’. If the information given to the captain about the final waypoint was consistent, then it could be argued that he was blameless. But it was not. At the briefing, the captain was told that the track went to McMurdo Station. This is an undisputable fact: The briefing included an audiovisual presentation. The audio part was read out, from a script, which was as follows:


ALL FLIGHTS FOR THE ANTARTIC REGION WILL BE PLANNED TO DEPART AUCKLAND WITH FULL TANKS. AS AN APPROXIMATE FIGURE THIS WILL BE 109 TONNES OF FUEL. BASED ON AN ANTICIPATED ZERO FUEL WEIGHT OF 140 TONNES. A TAKE-OFF WEIGHT OF ALMOST 250 TONNES CAN BE ANTICIPATED FOR ALL FLIGHTS.

PAUSE 4 SECONDS

CHANGE BOTH SLIDES.

TWO ROUTES ARE AVAILABLE. FLIGHT DESPATCH HAS BEEN INSTRUCTED TO PREPARE TWO FLIGHT PLANS REGARDLESS OF THE FLIGHT FORECAST. BOTH ROUTES FOLLOW COMMON TRACKS TO CAPE HALLETT, THEN DEPENDENT ON WEATHER CONDITIONS EXISTING IN THE REGION ONE ROUTE PROCEEDS TO MCMURDO AND RETURN WHILST THE SECONDARY ROUTE IS VIA THE NINNIS GLACIER AND THE SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE. IT IS ANTICIPATED WIND FORECAST WILL BE SCANT, HOWEVER A COMPONENT OF MINUS 10 – 15 KNOTS CAN BE EXPECTED.

HEMISPHERICAL RULES WILL APPLY REGARDING FLIGHT LEVELS EN ROUTE – REFER TO THE RNC4 CHART – BUT NO PROBLEMS ARE ANTICIPATED WITH DRIFT CLIMB PROCEDURES AND BLOCK CLEARANCE ALTITUDES. REMEMBER THE LIMITING FACTOR WILL BE THE TIME SPENT IN THE MCMURDO OR SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE AREA AS THE FUEL REQUIREMENT FOR THE RETURN MUST BE BASED ON THE DEPRESSURISED LEVEL. DETAILS OF THE ROUTE INFORMATION WILL BE SUPPLIED IN A SEPARATE HAND-OUT.

PAUSE 4 SECONDS

CHANGE BOTH SLIDES

A STANDARD ROUTE DEFINITION WILL BE USED EMPLOYING THE FROM-VIA-TO FORMAT. ENTER NZAA THEN 78S/167E THIS BEING THE APPROXIMATE CO-ORDINATES OF MCMURDO STATION. NZCH IS ENTERED IN THE NORMAL WAY. NEW PLYMOUTH AND NELSON MAY BE ENTERED AS STANDARD IDENTS HOWEVER ALL OTHER ENTRIES WILL BE REQUIRED TO BE BY LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. REMEMBER FLIGHT PLAN OVERFLOW WILL OCCUR WITH MORE THAN 15 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE ENTRIES. NO DIFFICULTY WILL BE EXPERIENCED IN ASSEMBLING THE ROUTE TO BEYOND MCMURDO SOUND IN THE FIRST INSTANCE.
THE DIVERSION ROUTE NZCH-NZAA WOULD BE ACCESSED FROM THE AVAILABLE AIRWAYS FROM CH.
MCMURDO TACAN IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE TAPE THEREFORE NO UPDATE WILL OCCUR BEYOND THE RANGE OF THE CHRISTCHURCH VOR/DME.
PAUSE 4 SECONDS / CHANGE BOTH SLIDES.

[DozyWannabe]

And how many following flights were there?? and just by the by, luck should not have any part of the process of moving people by air, even on a sightseeing flight.

Well none, obviously - the point I was trying to make was that the Collins flight was the first to be dispatched with a computerised track that entered Lewis Bay and crossed Erebus. If the computerised track had been entered correctly in the first place, then every flight from 1978 onwards would have taken that route - and if the pilots of those flights had descended and encountered whiteout, it could well have been they, and not Collins, who had the misfortune to hit the mountain. That's all I mean by "luck".

Workingman303, I'm not saying any of those things - for a start I can't say what I would have done as I am not a line pilot, and I was barely a year old when the accident happened - a lot has happened in the pursuit of airline safety in that time, and in fact Justice Mahon's expanding of aircraft accident investigation parameters had a lot to do with it. With 20/20 hindsight it's obvious that ANZ's operating procedures regarding these flights started out with the best of intentions, but they gradually slipped as the trips became commonplace. If ANZ wanted the rules strictly adhered to, then they should have enforced those rules and not allowed a culture to develop whereby pilots routinely disregarded those rules. Instead, they published and reprinted promotional articles that explicitly stated that low flying was the norm. In fact ANZ's behaviour *prior* to the accident was just as detrimental to the safe handling of those flights.

Regarding

I have yet to hear anyone here say they would have done eactly the same as Collins and crew did given the same set of circumstances.

I imagine that the situation that Collins was unwittingly placed into would cause most pilots to break out into a cold sweat.

Ampan - I don't know where you sourced your copy of the briefing material from, but it should be pointed out that along with the audiovisual presentation, pilots being briefed on the route were also handed a folder of supplementary material. Included in this from 1978 onwards was a photocopy of the route down McMurdo Sound on an air navigation chart, which appears to have been plotted to the incorrect co-ordinates at the end of McMurdo Sound. In fact all briefing materials bar one show this route - that single sheet was included in Chippindale's report as Annex J. It is not proven whether Annex J was included in the briefing materials given to Collins and Simpson at their briefing, but certainly, all other supplementary material showed the McMurdo Sound route, and not the "official" track over Erebus.

While I can't say what "I would have done" - far too presumptuous for a non-pilot like me - I would hope that in a modern operation, the Chief Navigator would have felt safe to escalate his discovery of the error and get all appropriate briefing materials changed before another flight was allowed to depart instead of playing it down and changing the co-ordinates the night before departure with little to no notification of the change. In fact, even better to notify the whole company of how the error came about and to re-instate the "check, cross-check and re-check" mantra. Even if you don't consider Collins blameless, you have to admit that dispatching two pilots (Simpson and Collins) who had attended the same briefing with different INS flight plans was pretty woeful practise.

[ampan]

DozyWannabee - The "charts" you refer to showed the military route, from Cape Hallett to the Byrd Reporting Point. The crew were told, at the briefing, that they would not be flying the military route. But I accept that the material was inconsistent. The prime example is the sample flightplan. This, however, does not save the captain. Once he noted the inconsistency, as he would have done the night before, it was his job to resolve it. Instead, he assumed that the sample flightplan was correct and that the statements at the briefing were not. That can't be anything other than a bad mistake which, I suspect, the captain had begun to appreciate just before he died.

[ampan]

Graybeard: The F/E’s comment was made 26 seconds before impact and the captain reacted to it within six seconds, so there isn’t much in that. Of more interest is the decision to turn left.



0049.24GMT F/E Brooks “I don’t like this”

Six seconds later - Capt. Collins: “We’re twenty six miles north we’ll have to climb out of this”

Three seconds later – F/O Cassin: “It’s clear on the right and (well) ahead”

Capt. Collins: “Is it?”


Five seconds later – F/O Cassin: “Yes you’re clear to turn right there’s no high”

Capt. Collins: “No negative”

F/O Cassin: “No high ground if you do a one eighty”


Four seconds later, Capt. Collins pulled out the Heading Select knob and initiated a LEFT turn using the autopilot.

Two seconds later, the GPWS sounded.

Six seconds later, impact.



Why go left if you think you’re in the middle of McMurdo Sound with high ground to left and with your F/O recommending a right turn? Answer: Pennies started to drop.

[DozyWannabe]

ampan:
This, however, does not save the captain. Once he noted the inconsistency, as he would have done the night before, it was his job to resolve it.

But the point I was making was that roughly 42 pilots (estimate based on 3 flights a month for 14 months after the route was computerised) prior to Collins were given the same inconsistent briefing materials - by your standards all of them should have noted the inconsistency -why single Collins out? This was a systemic failure.

Why go left if you think you’re in the middle of McMurdo Sound with high ground to left and with your F/O recommending a right turn? Answer: Pennies started to drop.

It's all conjecture. While digging up material to try and make sense of this I found an interesting write-up here:

The Briefing Room: Investigate Nov 05, Return to Erebus

in which an alternate (and IMO equally plausible) theory is put forward:

49:30 Collins: We’re twenty six miles north we’ll have to climb out of this. [Sounds puzzled not worried.]
Unidentified : OK
49:33 Cassin: It’s clear on on the right. [In right hand seat, he can still see terrain on right, so he is not yet in full whiteout.]
Collins: Is it?
Cassin: Yep.
49:35 Mulgrew/Moloney: You can see (Ross Island). [Probably Mulgrew. Could not be positively distinguished.]
49:38 Cassin: You’re clear to turn right there’s
Collins: No negative [Sitting on left, Collins has lost sight of terrain on right, so is unwilling to fly to the right. He is in full whiteout to the right]
Cassin: No high ground if you do a one eighty. [Cassin on the right can still see terrain to the right, so he repeats his suggestion.]
49:44 ((Ground proximity warning tone – warning continues until impact))

Which I hope you'll agree is also fair. In this version of events, they simply ran out of time.

Regarding what you call the "military route" chart, I remember reading that overlaying the chart on a map with the false waypoint plotted matched almost exactly. Whether this was an exceptionally unfortunate coincidence, or whether the track had indeed been plotted against the false waypoint we'll probably never know for certain, though I reckon it's pretty academic at this point.

[ampan]

As regards the number of flights in the preceding 14 months, they only flew to Antartica in October and November, so as to get the best weather. There were only about six flights per season (which is why it was a dead loss commercially).

As regards the captains of the previous flights, one of them (Capt. Simpson) noted 'something'. But even if those captains were performing aerobatics over the summit of Mt Erebus, that doesn't absolve Capt. Collins. He must have noted the difference between the statements at the briefing and the sample flightplan. All he had to do was to check that waypoint when it was entered, or, at the very least, check it against the chart after reaching Cape Hallet, especially given that he had decided to descend below the minimum safe altitude.

As regards the Investigate article, I don't see any alternative theory put forward. The words in square brackets are just some journalist's notes, inserted to make the transcript more readable. In any event, how can this alternative theory assist the crew? If anything, it makes them look even less certain of their position.

Whatever be the background, it is clear that the F/O wanted to go right and the captain did not. It is also clear that the only way out was to the left.

As regards the military route, the so-called "false" waypoint was reasonably close, but further to the southwest. You wouldn't get an exact match with an overlay. It should be noted that the military aircraft were to land at McMurdo Station, hence the Byrd Reporting Point in the middle of the Sound. The military aircraft would head for Byrd using their two-platform INS (cf the DC10's better three-platform INS) at above the Minimum Safe Altitude until McMurdo fixed their position by radar. They would then go below MSA and turn left at Byrd, knowing they were lined up for landing.

The Byrd Reporting Point had very little relevance to AirNZ's Nav section, because the DC10s were not going to land. The obvious location for the final waypoint was a beacon. Initially, it was the NDB. When that failed, they changed it to the TACAN. The problem was that for 14 months the waypoint was not at the NDB, so a change that was thought to be very small turned out to be of the order of 26 nautical miles.

[DozyWannabe]

ampan:
Whatever be the background, it is clear that the F/O wanted to go right and the captain did not. It is also clear that the only way out was to the left.

Typo? Your theory would suggest the only way out was to the right - though given the impact zone's location it could be argued that any evasive maneouvre at that point was too late.

OK - so the number of previous pilots is much lower, duly noted. However, that still leaves several pilots who, according to your source, received a briefing that told them they were routing direct to McMurdo Station (though the word "approximately" in the script, as well as the lack of the term "direct" does give me pause for thought as to whether that's a fair argument), while the majority of their briefing materials said they were going down McMurdo Sound. So back to my original point - why do you single Collins out for censure when any one of them, by your terms, should have reported the discrepancy?

Collins had no reason to question the waypoint - he had no idea that it had changed because nobody thought to inform dispatch. Are you seriously suggesting that having plotted the route the night before, having got the flight plan from dispatch, he should have plotted them again? One of the major points of having a whole division of the company dedicated to navigation is that line pilots should be able to trust the information that they are given, surely?

And I don't read the notes as saying they were uncertain of their position - I see them as simply saying they could not visually confirm where they were - and as a result they elected to climb out, unfortunately too late to make a difference. This was mere seconds before impact - up until then they had no reason to think they were anywhere other than where the previous flights had gone.

The obvious location for the final waypoint was a beacon. Initially, it was the NDB. When that failed, they changed it to the TACAN. The problem was that for 14 months the waypoint was not at the NDB, so a change that was thought to be very small turned out to be of the order of 26 nautical miles.

As I understood it, Chief Navigator Hewitt initially intended to set the waypoint at the ice runway for McMurdo, neither the NDB or the TACAN. What Simpson found was that following the INS track to the false waypoint he was a considerable distance from the TACAN, which he dialled in for confirmation. This is important because firstly it is not recorded whether Simpson told Nav Section how far off the waypoint was, and also because he did not report it until after his flight. Hewitt gave the instruction to correct the waypoint, believing it to be only a 2 mile difference. He did not make the check himself, and it would appear the data operator simply entered the correction without plotting the distance himself (he may not have been navigationally qualified, computers being recalcitrant things in 1979). This change went into the computer the morning of Collins' flight and no other notification was given. A major systemic failure. As such, the Byrd waypoint is somewhat irrelevant.

[ampan]

There’s no argument concerning the systemic failure. It was a monumental balls-up from start to finish. The only reason why the debate still rages is because of NZALPA’s stupid attempts to enshrine Mahon’s report and to deify the captain. I’m absolutely sure that if there is life after death, the captain will be eternally embarrassed.

I agree that from the position the left turn was commenced, it was too late. The aircraft was in the jaws of Lewis Bay, at 1500 feet, so it was doomed. But if the left turn had commenced only a few seconds beforehand, they might have made it out to the left. Not so the right, because of the high ground of Cape Bird, which extended back to about the “five o’clock” position relative to the aircraft. In other words, F/O Cassin was wrong.

You need to appreciate that this accident occurred in a different era. AirNZ’s employment policy up to the mid 1970s was to only employ air force pilots, whether they be RNZAF, RAAF, or RAF. That policy only started to relax when the supply started to dry up. Each and every captain who gave evidence to the Mahon Royal Commission had been a serving officer in an air force, usually the RNZAF. As such, they were all trained navigators and they all knew about the problems associated with briefings. The basic rule, which persists to this day, is that the pilot-in-command is responsible for the route. You can’t put the blame on contradictory information, because the pilot’s job is to sort that out and establish where he/she is going to. That is a fundamental aspect of piloting, and driving, and walking.

I guarantee that almost every 1970s captain will recall receiving contradictory information about a route. What was the response? Pick one and hope it’s right?