Paul Holmes and Erebus
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DozyW - You’re doing a fine job but there are two points that have yet to be put to bed. You would accept that if the captain had received conflicting information about the final waypoint, then he had to check it if he planned on going below MSA. You say that there was no conflict re the information but, in fact, there was: The briefing used slides and an audiotape. When making the audiotape the briefing officer read from a script. Both the tape and the script were produced as exhibits to the Royal Commission, so there is no doubting that the words in the script were actually heard by those in attendance. I have a copy of the script, which was Exhibit 12. This is what it says: “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.”
What was said at the briefing leads into the other point that requires an explanation: Why did the captain decide to turn left when attempting to climb out? The logical explanation is what was said at the briefing: “Your nav track goes to McMurdo Station.”
The night before, the captain plotted the track on his atlas and discovered that it went from Cape Hallett to a point 20nm to the west of McMurdo Station. He would have also noted that a track from Cape Hallett direct to McMurdo Station went over Erebus, but not to worry, because that wasn’t to be his track. So he folds up his paperwork and goes to bed. The next morning, he and the F/O manually entered the co-ordinates – but he never checked that final waypoint. And he had plenty of time to check it on the way down, but never did. There would have been a pre-descent briefing, where going below MSA would have been discussed. At that point, it was imperative that he check the final waypoint, because that was the only thing keeping the aircraft from hitting terrain, and yet he did nothing. The problem only dawned on him at 1500 feet in the jaws of Lewis Bay when the F/E expressed alarm and he decided to climb out. The F/O told him it was clear to the right, but pennies were starting to drop very quickly and he recalled what was said at the briefing, realised he should have checked the final waypoint, and appreciated that Erebus might be dead ahead, which would explain the radio problems. If so, the only way out would be to the left, so he overruled the F/O, pulled out the knob, and initiated a left turn using the autopilot.
What was said at the briefing leads into the other point that requires an explanation: Why did the captain decide to turn left when attempting to climb out? The logical explanation is what was said at the briefing: “Your nav track goes to McMurdo Station.”
The night before, the captain plotted the track on his atlas and discovered that it went from Cape Hallett to a point 20nm to the west of McMurdo Station. He would have also noted that a track from Cape Hallett direct to McMurdo Station went over Erebus, but not to worry, because that wasn’t to be his track. So he folds up his paperwork and goes to bed. The next morning, he and the F/O manually entered the co-ordinates – but he never checked that final waypoint. And he had plenty of time to check it on the way down, but never did. There would have been a pre-descent briefing, where going below MSA would have been discussed. At that point, it was imperative that he check the final waypoint, because that was the only thing keeping the aircraft from hitting terrain, and yet he did nothing. The problem only dawned on him at 1500 feet in the jaws of Lewis Bay when the F/E expressed alarm and he decided to climb out. The F/O told him it was clear to the right, but pennies were starting to drop very quickly and he recalled what was said at the briefing, realised he should have checked the final waypoint, and appreciated that Erebus might be dead ahead, which would explain the radio problems. If so, the only way out would be to the left, so he overruled the F/O, pulled out the knob, and initiated a left turn using the autopilot.
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DozyWannabe,
In the Bolt/Kennedy report that was instegated to investigate shortcomings by the Civil Aviation Division in relation to ANZ and the Erebus flights, one of the points made in the Royal Commission Report in para 223e Mahon made an assertion that in his OPINION CAA would have approved a lower MSA for these sightseeing flights. He apparently did not understand that MSA's are set by standards laid down by ICAO, not picked out of the sky by CAA or the Company.
No where have I been able to find any confimation of your statement that CAA approved a descent to 500ft if approved by Ice control. Perhaps you could give me a reference?
In the Bolt/Kennedy report that was instegated to investigate shortcomings by the Civil Aviation Division in relation to ANZ and the Erebus flights, one of the points made in the Royal Commission Report in para 223e Mahon made an assertion that in his OPINION CAA would have approved a lower MSA for these sightseeing flights. He apparently did not understand that MSA's are set by standards laid down by ICAO, not picked out of the sky by CAA or the Company.
No where have I been able to find any confimation of your statement that CAA approved a descent to 500ft if approved by Ice control. Perhaps you could give me a reference?
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Originally Posted by ampan[/quote
and appreciated that Erebus might be dead ahead,
Originally Posted by DozyWannabe
The AINS is not normally subject to significant error (I think 2 miles was the max on a trip of that length), neither were any tracks being "programmed and reprogrammed every day".
Would anyone else here care to comment on whether most pilots would regard AINS the way Vette does - as reliable as ground based instruments, and therefore an adequate substitute for an IMC let-down.
Dozy, would your views at all change if regulations had required an actual visual confirmation of landmarks - (in this case, including Mt. Erebus itself (or the clear absence of it) before leaving MSA, unaided by any help from or assumtions about AINS? Because I'm under the impression this is in fact the self-imposed mandate of many (most?) pilots.
Anyone: am I wrong here?Finally, once beneath the clouds, Vette seems to be equating terrain that's "consistent with" what you would expect to see, with a "positive fix." For the benefit of us amateur nonaviators, How "positive" must a "positive fix" be?
They verified their position to the best of their ability with the materials they had to hand.
Changes were not that frequent, as I said before - and any changes should have been NOTAMed on the printout given to Collins that morning. They were not.
Not that high speed,
I think you underestimate the late Justice.
they had a dispensation to descend as low as 500ft if invited to do so by Mac Central under radar guidance.
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Do you not think he's a bit lite on aviation experience to understand fully what the environment is like?
What Mahon really needed was experience in getting to the bottom of complex cases, and he had plenty of that.
I find it naive in the extreme to suggest he needed aviation experience. All he needed was knowledge of what was reasonable and he was able to acquire this from the many experts called to testify.
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Could you please name the family links to the Privy Council???
The daughter of Woodhouse worked in the PR office of the ANZ head office in Auckland.
These links were not disclosed at the time, but came to light in the years after the appeals.
ampan, you are drawing an exceedingly long bow to suggest that the left turn was because the "penny had dropped"! There were probably numerous, far more likely, reasons for the left turn. I would suggest the most likely was that Collins had seen flat ground to the left less than a minute before.
framer, you seem to lack any grasp of the concept of "reasonable".
Can you not concieve of another way to verify their position?
At what stage should they have done this? Do you do this as you commence an instrument approach? If there was uncertainty as to their position, then yes, they should have done it, but there was not sufficient uncertainty.
Things change minute to minute and few of them are Notam'd. That is flying.
For example: the aircraft underwent daily inspection an hour ago, but it may not be ok NOW, because "things change minute to minute". Had better go and redo that daily inspection!
The weather forecast, issued two hours ago, indicated we did not need an alternate, but "things change", so we had better try to get an update; etc, etc...
Totally unreasonable!
There was nothing that the crew could reasonably have done differently.
Who issued the dispensation?
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Times are GMT
0018:11 – Captain: “Clouds come down a bit *** may not be able to ** McMurdo. Very hard to tell the difference between the cloud and the ice”
0019:39 – Captain: “Doesn’t look very promising does it?”
F/O: “No”
F/E: “No”
[Then two descending orbits through a hole in the cloud layer]
0046:39 – F/E: “Where’s Erebus in relation to us at the moment?”
[Various unidentified voices, whereby the word “left” is used three
times]
0046:48 – F/E: “I’m just thinking of any high ground in the area that’s all.”
[Down to 1500 feet]
0049:24 – F/E: “I don’t like this.”
0049:30 – Captain: “We’re twenty six miles north we’ll have to climb out of this”
0049:33 – F/O: “It’s clear on the right and (well) ahead.”
Captain: “Is it?”
F/O: “Yes”
0049:38 – F/O: “Yes you’re clear to turn right there’s no high”
Captain: “No negative” [Four seconds later, the Heading Select knob
was pulled out and a left turn was initiated using
the autopilot. Two seconds later, the GPWS
sounded.]
0018:11 – Captain: “Clouds come down a bit *** may not be able to ** McMurdo. Very hard to tell the difference between the cloud and the ice”
0019:39 – Captain: “Doesn’t look very promising does it?”
F/O: “No”
F/E: “No”
[Then two descending orbits through a hole in the cloud layer]
0046:39 – F/E: “Where’s Erebus in relation to us at the moment?”
[Various unidentified voices, whereby the word “left” is used three
times]
0046:48 – F/E: “I’m just thinking of any high ground in the area that’s all.”
[Down to 1500 feet]
0049:24 – F/E: “I don’t like this.”
0049:30 – Captain: “We’re twenty six miles north we’ll have to climb out of this”
0049:33 – F/O: “It’s clear on the right and (well) ahead.”
Captain: “Is it?”
F/O: “Yes”
0049:38 – F/O: “Yes you’re clear to turn right there’s no high”
Captain: “No negative” [Four seconds later, the Heading Select knob
was pulled out and a left turn was initiated using
the autopilot. Two seconds later, the GPWS
sounded.]
At what stage should they have done this? Do you do this as you commence an instrument approach?
To answer your first question, after they had levelled at MSA
(FL 160) and a) couldn't verify by visually sighting the appropriate landmarks b) couldn't pick up the TACAN c) couldn't pick up the DME d) HF told them that the tower was trying to contact them on two different VHF frequencies but with no reply.
They could stay at MSA until they either get visual, pick up the TACAN and DME, or are in the sector that allows for safe descent to the south of Ross Island. If they had remained at MSA they would have picked up the TACAN /DME on passing Erebus, realised the error in planning, and that would be the end of the story. Now I'm not suggesting that they are an inferior crew for not doing that, but I am saying that that is a lesson we can take from this. MSA is there to keep you from hitting terrain. Can we at least agree that that lesson needed to be learnt?
If the passengers arrived in the descent sector area at FL160 and descended there it would not have been the end of the world.
As for the second question, I do verify my position prior to descending below MSA yes. I don't have to plot on a map but I would if the other four or five methods of doing it proved fruitless.
They were not in the wrong by descending when they did. Even Chippendale was of this view.
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Hi all, I'll reply to this for now and pick up the rest later, it's been a long day and I'm shattered...
Was this not superseded by the INS routing? I know that they'd used the same video and script since before the 1978 switch, though I'd need to see more context in what you are quoting (namely the rest of the script if possible, along with any addenda that may have made it into their briefing wallets).
I don't think McMurdo Station came into it - though I have no proof for or against - I believe the decision to turn left had a far more simple explanation. They're headed southwest into Lewis Bay on INS and draw ever further into the sector whiteout, until they are confronted by full whiteout in the forward windows. Some terrain is still visible from the side windows however, to Cassin's right and Collins' left. I believe that Collins elected to turn left because his view through Cassin's window was obscured by total whiteout and he elected to turn towards the terrain that he could see through his own window, and which he knew to be low enough in terms of elevation to be safe. An additional possibility is that he knew that the western edge of McMurdo Sound was defined by the towering cliffs of Cape Bernacchi - yes, Erebus would have been to his left in that scenario, but it would have been 26 miles away.
I'm not so sure that he would - I think he'd have noticed and made a note of where Erebus was, but would not have tracked direct over McMurdo Station itself because the nav printout he used to plot the course (which was handled by the computer and would have been accurate to plus or minus 2 miles) stated categorically that the track would not involve Erebus directly.
It's also possible that Capt. Simpson's discovery of McMurdo's position being 27 miles west of where the programmed track took him would have been passed around the crew room in the 2 weeks between Simpson and Collins' flights.
I believe he checked it against his notes, which were based on the printout given to him at the briefing and was, as far as anyone other than Hewitt and maybe one or two people in the nav section was aware, exactly the same as the one he'd been given that morning. I used to have one of those old dot-matrix printers and the text generated by them in the pitch used is not an easy thing to read when in motion - my theory is that he copied the whole thing along with his map trace into his notebook and used that exclusively, being far more able to read his own writing than the printout (also that having material required for cross-check across two facing pages of a ringbinder is far more easy to deal with on a busy flight deck than separate sheets of paper).
I believe that the printout they were given in the morning was not referred to after departure, but used to enter the co-ordinates at the gate, requiring one pilot to verify the other's inputs against the printout, which means it may well have been Cassin doing the verification. There's scope for more tragic irony there - if they were using the printout to program the computers in order to comply with SOP (which is logical), then if Collins had been the kind of pilot to treat SOP as guidelines then he'd have used his notes as opposed to the printout and the accident would never have happened.
It would also have answered the question as to whether Chief Navigator Hewitt would have ever admitted that the error he made was much larger than they first thought, had he not been forced to by the tragic consequences.
Had Collins been told of a change I believe he would have gone and re-worked it, even if it meant delaying the flight, or postponing it altogether.
It's a workable theory certainly, and as good as many others, but for what it's worth, here's my take - it's based on the fact that the original investigation failed to take the damaged FDR tape into consideration when synchronising the CVR with the FDR, and transposed the last few FDR data points earlier in the sequence. The effect of this is to render what some consider to be violent evasive maneouvres as actually being the flight surface response to the impact - remember it bounced in the snow before disintegrating on the mountain.
So here goes - I believe that the last FDR traces are symptoms of the impact rather than an attempt to avoid it. I believe the last deliberate control inputs were the autopilot left turn and the power increase, neither of which came soon enough to avert the collision. Consequently I believe they never saw what they hit, even when they were right on top of it, as a result of full whiteout through the front windows. As I stated above, I believe that Collins' decision to turn left was based on the fact that he could not see anything out of Cassin's window and that it's possible he was more concerned with snagging something on the Cape Bernacchi cliffs than hitting Erebus, which he believed was 26 miles southeast. I think they died believing they were over McMurdo Sound.
@FGD135 - many thanks for doing the lookup of the ANZ families - it's a rare day that this happens, but I'm too knackered to face doing an evidence dive today.
What was said at the briefing leads into the other point that requires an explanation: Why did the captain decide to turn left when attempting to climb out? The logical explanation is what was said at the briefing: “Your nav track goes to McMurdo Station.”
He would have also noted that a track from Cape Hallett direct to McMurdo Station went over Erebus
It's also possible that Capt. Simpson's discovery of McMurdo's position being 27 miles west of where the programmed track took him would have been passed around the crew room in the 2 weeks between Simpson and Collins' flights.
At that point, it was imperative that he check the final waypoint, because that was the only thing keeping the aircraft from hitting terrain, and yet he did nothing.
I believe that the printout they were given in the morning was not referred to after departure, but used to enter the co-ordinates at the gate, requiring one pilot to verify the other's inputs against the printout, which means it may well have been Cassin doing the verification. There's scope for more tragic irony there - if they were using the printout to program the computers in order to comply with SOP (which is logical), then if Collins had been the kind of pilot to treat SOP as guidelines then he'd have used his notes as opposed to the printout and the accident would never have happened.
It would also have answered the question as to whether Chief Navigator Hewitt would have ever admitted that the error he made was much larger than they first thought, had he not been forced to by the tragic consequences.
Had Collins been told of a change I believe he would have gone and re-worked it, even if it meant delaying the flight, or postponing it altogether.
The problem only dawned on him at 1500 feet in the jaws of Lewis Bay when the F/E expressed alarm and he decided to climb out. The F/O told him it was clear to the right, but pennies were starting to drop very quickly and he recalled what was said at the briefing, realised he should have checked the final waypoint, and appreciated that Erebus might be dead ahead, which would explain the radio problems. If so, the only way out would be to the left, so he overruled the F/O, pulled out the knob, and initiated a left turn using the autopilot.
So here goes - I believe that the last FDR traces are symptoms of the impact rather than an attempt to avoid it. I believe the last deliberate control inputs were the autopilot left turn and the power increase, neither of which came soon enough to avert the collision. Consequently I believe they never saw what they hit, even when they were right on top of it, as a result of full whiteout through the front windows. As I stated above, I believe that Collins' decision to turn left was based on the fact that he could not see anything out of Cassin's window and that it's possible he was more concerned with snagging something on the Cape Bernacchi cliffs than hitting Erebus, which he believed was 26 miles southeast. I think they died believing they were over McMurdo Sound.
@FGD135 - many thanks for doing the lookup of the ANZ families - it's a rare day that this happens, but I'm too knackered to face doing an evidence dive today.
Last edited by DozyWannabe; 8th Dec 2011 at 20:45.
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FGD135
The names you have mentioned were all in the Appeal Court, When Mahon took his appeal to the Privy Council they agreed with the findings of the Appeal Court. None of the members of the Privy Council had any connection with anybody involved in any previous proceedings.
The names you have mentioned were all in the Appeal Court, When Mahon took his appeal to the Privy Council they agreed with the findings of the Appeal Court. None of the members of the Privy Council had any connection with anybody involved in any previous proceedings.
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@prospector - You're skirting around the main issue here which was that the Appeals Court did not find anything substantively wrong with Mahon's findings, *other* than his assertion that the inaccuracies presented to him were part of a co-ordinated effort, and they overturned the costs for that reason and that reason alone. I wonder if the Privy Council would have felt differently had they known of the blatant conflict of interest within the Appeals Court panel.
EDIT :
The section relating to the NZCA's limits versus the dispensation is Mahon, page 17-18 section 40(b). It was the airline who gave the dispensation as part of the briefing, and I think it reasonable to assume that the contradiction between the airline's operating procedure and what NZCA had originally specified in 1977 would not have been covered in the briefing. Had this been clear in the Chippindale report, it could have caused difficult questions to be asked of ANZ (for contradicting the regulation in the first place), and of the NZCA (for not effectively regulating the national airline by letting the dispensation stay unchallenged for 2 years).
EDIT :
The section relating to the NZCA's limits versus the dispensation is Mahon, page 17-18 section 40(b). It was the airline who gave the dispensation as part of the briefing, and I think it reasonable to assume that the contradiction between the airline's operating procedure and what NZCA had originally specified in 1977 would not have been covered in the briefing. Had this been clear in the Chippindale report, it could have caused difficult questions to be asked of ANZ (for contradicting the regulation in the first place), and of the NZCA (for not effectively regulating the national airline by letting the dispensation stay unchallenged for 2 years).
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Exhibit 12
AIR NEW ZEALAND LIMITED
FLIGHT OPERATIONS DIVISION
ROUTE CLEARANCE UNIT
PHOTOGRAPHS MARCH 1977
TWIN SLIDE PRESENTATION AND SCRIPT UNDATED NOV. – 79
ANTARTIC BRIEF
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.
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 FORECASTING 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 THE DEPRESSURIZED LEVEL. DETAILS OF THE ROUTE INFORMATION WILL BE SUPPLIED IN A SEPARATE HAND-OUT.
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.
[The next two and half pages deal with changing to grid navigation. Slides were then shown, several of which turned out to be misdescribed.]
WE ARE ALMOST 77 DEGREES SOUTH FROM CAPE HALLETT TOWARDS ROSS ISLAND. MT EREBUS ALMOST 13,000 FEET AHEAD. MCMURDO STATION AND SCOTT BASE LIE 20 MILES BEYOND THE MOUNTAIN IN THE DIRECTION OF GRID NORTH.
NOW APPROACHING EREBUS AT 16,000 FEET, THE MINIMUM SECTOR ALTITUDE. IN VMC A DESCENT TO THIS MINIMUM ALTITUDE UP TO 50 MILES BEFORE MCMURDO WILL BE FOUND ADVANTAGEOUS FOR VIEWING.
THE LOW FEQUENCY NDB APPROACH AT MCMURDO, WHICH PREVIOUSLY PROVIDED OUR ANTARTIC FLIGHTS WITH AN AUTHORISED CLOUD BREAK PROCEDURE TO 6000 FEET, HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN, CONSEQUENTLY THE LET-DOWN BELOW THE COMPANY SECTOR SAFE ALTITUDE OF 16,000 FEET, IS STRICTLY VISUAL AND PERMISSION HAS BEEN GIVEN TO DESCENT TO 6000 FEET QNH IN VMC.
[Then follows the SOP re height, then sightseeing info, then homeward leg.]
FLIGHT OPERATIONS DIVISION
ROUTE CLEARANCE UNIT
PHOTOGRAPHS MARCH 1977
TWIN SLIDE PRESENTATION AND SCRIPT UNDATED NOV. – 79
ANTARTIC BRIEF
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.
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 FORECASTING 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 THE DEPRESSURIZED LEVEL. DETAILS OF THE ROUTE INFORMATION WILL BE SUPPLIED IN A SEPARATE HAND-OUT.
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.
[The next two and half pages deal with changing to grid navigation. Slides were then shown, several of which turned out to be misdescribed.]
WE ARE ALMOST 77 DEGREES SOUTH FROM CAPE HALLETT TOWARDS ROSS ISLAND. MT EREBUS ALMOST 13,000 FEET AHEAD. MCMURDO STATION AND SCOTT BASE LIE 20 MILES BEYOND THE MOUNTAIN IN THE DIRECTION OF GRID NORTH.
NOW APPROACHING EREBUS AT 16,000 FEET, THE MINIMUM SECTOR ALTITUDE. IN VMC A DESCENT TO THIS MINIMUM ALTITUDE UP TO 50 MILES BEFORE MCMURDO WILL BE FOUND ADVANTAGEOUS FOR VIEWING.
THE LOW FEQUENCY NDB APPROACH AT MCMURDO, WHICH PREVIOUSLY PROVIDED OUR ANTARTIC FLIGHTS WITH AN AUTHORISED CLOUD BREAK PROCEDURE TO 6000 FEET, HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN, CONSEQUENTLY THE LET-DOWN BELOW THE COMPANY SECTOR SAFE ALTITUDE OF 16,000 FEET, IS STRICTLY VISUAL AND PERMISSION HAS BEEN GIVEN TO DESCENT TO 6000 FEET QNH IN VMC.
[Then follows the SOP re height, then sightseeing info, then homeward leg.]
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OK, so that's the original '77 briefing with additions, but it doesn't tell the whole story - there would have been addenda and changes, as well as verbal ad-libs to the script at briefing time. Testimony given (albeit reluctantly) indicates that the 6,000ft lower limit was verbally amended to any altitude cleared by the McMurdo controllers - if that was the case then it would almost certainly have been in Collins' or Cassin's notes, both of which disappeared under highly dubious circumstances.
(Also, a little tip - if you're going to copy and paste from Word, copy and paste it first into Notepad (or any other raw text editor) and then copy/paste again into the form - it won't muck about with the fonts then.)
(Also, a little tip - if you're going to copy and paste from Word, copy and paste it first into Notepad (or any other raw text editor) and then copy/paste again into the form - it won't muck about with the fonts then.)
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That was definitely what was said to the crew of the flight. They were even given copies of the script as part of their briefing materials. Mahon accepted all this, but said that other materials indicated a route down the Sound and said that “these displays would, not unnaturally, take precedence over the spoken words indicating a direct track from Cape Hallett to McMurdo Station.” (page 60 of the Royal Commission report)
But it would never have happened like that. The pilots would not have sat there thinking ‘eenie meenie’. They would have raised the issue, as they were obliged to do. Mahon’s “displays” were promotional materials, not charts. The only navigational map they were given at the briefing was a photocopy of the inset of this chart:
Antarctic Ross Sea Region | Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) - Toit
If you have the whole chart, you don’t even need a straight edge to tell that a track from Cape Hallett to Mac Station goes over Ross Island. But if you only have the inset, you can’t tell. All the pilots must have left the briefing on the understanding that their track was to Mac Station, but some may well have thought that such a track would take them down the Sound with Erebus to the left.
But it would never have happened like that. The pilots would not have sat there thinking ‘eenie meenie’. They would have raised the issue, as they were obliged to do. Mahon’s “displays” were promotional materials, not charts. The only navigational map they were given at the briefing was a photocopy of the inset of this chart:
Antarctic Ross Sea Region | Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) - Toit
If you have the whole chart, you don’t even need a straight edge to tell that a track from Cape Hallett to Mac Station goes over Ross Island. But if you only have the inset, you can’t tell. All the pilots must have left the briefing on the understanding that their track was to Mac Station, but some may well have thought that such a track would take them down the Sound with Erebus to the left.
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@ampan - The problem that I have is this; that the documents to which you refer were submitted by counsel for Air New Zealand and as such cannot be expected to tell the entire story, knowing what we know about shredders, missing ringbinder pages and break-ins.
DD covered this on a thread a couple of years ago, but Captain Wilson, who performed the briefing for the Simpson and Collins crews, testified to making a verbal addendum to the script that it was standard practice to go lower than 6,000ft if invited to do so by ATC. Some of the management pilots who swore that they had never busted the 6,000ft limit were confronted by press articles and write-ups proving that they had in fact done just that. A McDonnell-Douglas executive penned one of the articles, so he knew. Every home with a mailing address in NZ received a copy of a promotional article, so everyone who read that article knew - and yet the only conclusion we can draw from the NZCA's assertions is that they did not read those articles, or if they read them did not immediately get ANZ on the blower and ask what the hell was going on? I don't buy it.
We know Wilson diverged from the script there by his own testimony, so who's to say that he didn't mention in passing to disregard the old 1977 tracks and refer to the co-ordinates on the printouts supplied at the briefing?
NZALPA's deposition stated that as well as the promotional materials, there was a photocopied chart showing the McMurdo Sound INS track in the briefing materials.
I don't think Collins would have "eeny-meenyed" with documents of that nature. I believe he plotted the co-ordinates the night before to establish what the *actual* track - i.e. the one that he believed would be programmed into the computer the next day - looked like, and it didn't look like a track direct to McMurdo.
DD covered this on a thread a couple of years ago, but Captain Wilson, who performed the briefing for the Simpson and Collins crews, testified to making a verbal addendum to the script that it was standard practice to go lower than 6,000ft if invited to do so by ATC. Some of the management pilots who swore that they had never busted the 6,000ft limit were confronted by press articles and write-ups proving that they had in fact done just that. A McDonnell-Douglas executive penned one of the articles, so he knew. Every home with a mailing address in NZ received a copy of a promotional article, so everyone who read that article knew - and yet the only conclusion we can draw from the NZCA's assertions is that they did not read those articles, or if they read them did not immediately get ANZ on the blower and ask what the hell was going on? I don't buy it.
We know Wilson diverged from the script there by his own testimony, so who's to say that he didn't mention in passing to disregard the old 1977 tracks and refer to the co-ordinates on the printouts supplied at the briefing?
NZALPA's deposition stated that as well as the promotional materials, there was a photocopied chart showing the McMurdo Sound INS track in the briefing materials.
I don't think Collins would have "eeny-meenyed" with documents of that nature. I believe he plotted the co-ordinates the night before to establish what the *actual* track - i.e. the one that he believed would be programmed into the computer the next day - looked like, and it didn't look like a track direct to McMurdo.
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Agree re Collins. He would not have sat silent at the briefing receiving contradictory information. Given that no-one queried the track, Collins must have left that afternoon on the assumption that his track was from Cape Hallett direct to Mac Station, which would take him down the Sound with Erebus to the left. He also left the briefing with a copy of an old flightplan, which he used to plot the track. This time, he had the whole chart, not just the inset. He would have seen that a track from Hallett to Mac Station went over Ross Island, but when he plotted the final waypoint, he found it to be 20nm west of Mac Station, which probably made some sense, because it would have taken him down the Sound. (Against that, it would be an unusual place for such a waypoint to be.)
But the point is that there was an issue with that particular waypoint and he had to resolve it.
But the point is that there was an issue with that particular waypoint and he had to resolve it.
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You see, I can't agree with that either. The details he had in the printout in his hands the night before, and from which all his notes came, showed a waypoint just west of the Dailey Islands. For whatever reason, the mnemonic code for this waypoint was "MCMURDO". If Wilson said "direct Cape Hallett to McMurdo", without directly referencing the station it would have been perfectly logical to suppose that it was this waypoint (the one that was changed without notifying Collins or his crew) that he was in fact referring to. The McMurdo NDB was no longer there - officially at least - and the TACAN was useless until they were south of Ross Island.
Now - Capt. Simpson goes down a few weeks before, and one of the things I noted in an earlier thread was a suggestion made by someone - it may even have been yourself - that the waypoint was not where he expected it to be. This isn't the case - the waypoint was exactly where he expected it to be, but McMurdo Station itself was not. Simpson reports this anomaly to Thompson and hears nothing else about it until after the accident. We don't know what exactly was said - but the gist was that the waypoint called "MCMURDO" was 27 miles from the base itself. We don't know exactly what Simpson was expecting either - given that the de facto track went down McMurdo Sound to the Dailey Islands, they could just as easily have renamed the waypoint "DAILEY" and left it there - but the nav section discovers a mistake, elects to quickly and quietly deal with it themselves and the rest is history.
The Dailey Islands track was in the computer for 14 months before the crash - 14 months! - and we're expected to believe that every single crew that went to the briefings heard Capt. Wilson say the track went over McMurdo Station (and hence Erebus), plotted the track to the Dailey Islands, followed the track to the Dailey Islands and never said "Why is the 'MCMURDO' waypoint nowhere near the Station and why were we flying into the Sound rather than Lewis Bay"? I don't buy it - I just can't. I think when they heard him say "via McMurdo" that he meant the Sound and the waypoint.
Now - Capt. Simpson goes down a few weeks before, and one of the things I noted in an earlier thread was a suggestion made by someone - it may even have been yourself - that the waypoint was not where he expected it to be. This isn't the case - the waypoint was exactly where he expected it to be, but McMurdo Station itself was not. Simpson reports this anomaly to Thompson and hears nothing else about it until after the accident. We don't know what exactly was said - but the gist was that the waypoint called "MCMURDO" was 27 miles from the base itself. We don't know exactly what Simpson was expecting either - given that the de facto track went down McMurdo Sound to the Dailey Islands, they could just as easily have renamed the waypoint "DAILEY" and left it there - but the nav section discovers a mistake, elects to quickly and quietly deal with it themselves and the rest is history.
The Dailey Islands track was in the computer for 14 months before the crash - 14 months! - and we're expected to believe that every single crew that went to the briefings heard Capt. Wilson say the track went over McMurdo Station (and hence Erebus), plotted the track to the Dailey Islands, followed the track to the Dailey Islands and never said "Why is the 'MCMURDO' waypoint nowhere near the Station and why were we flying into the Sound rather than Lewis Bay"? I don't buy it - I just can't. I think when they heard him say "via McMurdo" that he meant the Sound and the waypoint.
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Believe it. There were only 12 previous trips. One encountered bad weather and took the alternate route. The others had 'gin clear' conditions, so the nav track had no relevance. They went where they pleased, and if someone did a fake strafing run at Scott Base and went down to 1000 feet, so what? That doesn't mean that you could do that in a heavy overcast.
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Was that before or after they switched to INS rather than ground-based navigation? It's an important distinction to make because the flights were planned, briefed and handled very differently in the first (pre-INS) year compared to the second.
I don't believe every other flight had "gin clear" conditions either - CAVOK possibly, but you can still have CAVOK with significant cloud cover.
I don't believe every other flight had "gin clear" conditions either - CAVOK possibly, but you can still have CAVOK with significant cloud cover.
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The one that diverted was in the same season (ie, Oct / Nov 1979). I don't think any flight that got to Mac Station had CAVOK, but stand to be corrected.
There wasn't any "switch" to INS, because all the flights were on DC10s, where INS was standard. The waypoint for the initial flights was one of nav aids at Mac Station, deliberately selected for that reason. This didn't mean, obviously, that the flights were "programmed to fly over an active volcanoe", because a human being decided where the aircraft went, not a computer. The only reason for staying on the nav track all the way to Mac Station was if it was covered in cloud. In that situation, the idea was to stay on the track until past the summit and then do an out-and-back cloud-break using the NDB. The pilots at the briefing actually practised this manouvre in the simulator later in the day, even though the NDB wasn't working. The exercise began with the simulator positioned overhead Mac Station - not 20nm to west. Given that, I can't see how any of them could have thought that the waypoint was anywhere other than Mac Station.
There wasn't any "switch" to INS, because all the flights were on DC10s, where INS was standard. The waypoint for the initial flights was one of nav aids at Mac Station, deliberately selected for that reason. This didn't mean, obviously, that the flights were "programmed to fly over an active volcanoe", because a human being decided where the aircraft went, not a computer. The only reason for staying on the nav track all the way to Mac Station was if it was covered in cloud. In that situation, the idea was to stay on the track until past the summit and then do an out-and-back cloud-break using the NDB. The pilots at the briefing actually practised this manouvre in the simulator later in the day, even though the NDB wasn't working. The exercise began with the simulator positioned overhead Mac Station - not 20nm to west. Given that, I can't see how any of them could have thought that the waypoint was anywhere other than Mac Station.