Paul Holmes and Erebus
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@prospector - Learned people agreeing with you is not the same as being correct.
@ampan - "Scud Run" is a misnomer in this case - to use the term implies that the crew, unable to determine their location, descended through an overcast to attempt visual navigation at a lower altitude, which is not what happened here. The descent was performed in *broken cloud through which they could see* on the basis that *they believed they already knew where they were*, and that they would be able to see where they were going and avoid the danger presented by the overcast south of their position.
@Dream Land - Collins was, by all accounts, a very conscientious pilot and very conservative in his approach to risk - if that wasn't the case his colleagues would not have defended him as they did. The issue here is the whole basis of the pilot error argument is predicated on an assertion that the crew were unsure of their location - an assertion for which there is no concrete evidence. ANZ management had to falsify the CVR transcript in order to bolster their argument.
My argument has never been that the crew made no mistake - clearly they did. However, my contention is that the mistake was understandable and entirely primed by the slipshod management of the company from the top down, and as such the crew should not be tarnished with allegations of negligence or carelessness.
@ampan - "Scud Run" is a misnomer in this case - to use the term implies that the crew, unable to determine their location, descended through an overcast to attempt visual navigation at a lower altitude, which is not what happened here. The descent was performed in *broken cloud through which they could see* on the basis that *they believed they already knew where they were*, and that they would be able to see where they were going and avoid the danger presented by the overcast south of their position.
@Dream Land - Collins was, by all accounts, a very conscientious pilot and very conservative in his approach to risk - if that wasn't the case his colleagues would not have defended him as they did. The issue here is the whole basis of the pilot error argument is predicated on an assertion that the crew were unsure of their location - an assertion for which there is no concrete evidence. ANZ management had to falsify the CVR transcript in order to bolster their argument.
My argument has never been that the crew made no mistake - clearly they did. However, my contention is that the mistake was understandable and entirely primed by the slipshod management of the company from the top down, and as such the crew should not be tarnished with allegations of negligence or carelessness.
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@prospector - Learned people agreeing with you is not the same as being correct.
In the case in question the learned peoiple who I agree with are all very experienced aviators.
"Scud Run" is a misnomer in this case -
Please do not come back with the AINS track argument, it was not, at that time, and to the best of my knowledge, never has been cleared for any sort of instrument guidance below route MSA, which was 16,000ft.
Thus as far as I'm concerned (and given the deliberately destroyed evidence on the part of Mac Central and Air New Zealand), I have to apportion the responsibility as 15% NZCA for failing to update their regulations and failing to keep a regulatory eye on ANZ between 1977 and 1979 as far as Antarctic flights were concerned, 5% on Mac Central for destroying exculpatory evidence (which leads me to believe they were not paying attention to their radar), and 80% on Air New Zealand, for allowing standards to slip so spectacularly within the space of two years, having incredibly lax communication protocols between their nav section and operations and changing the INS co-ordinates without the crew's knowledge.
Last edited by prospector; 30th Jan 2012 at 02:04.
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I am still stunned that even in this day and age with all the discussion about flying RNAV approaches with all the issues associated with trying to get something close to a precision approach in tolerances, reliability and therefore minima. And all the issues related to not having reliance on ground based aids even with the accuracy that laser gyros and GPS give us, that there are still those out there that think that using the INS system on the DC10 is perfectly acceptable for a descent well below minima.
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Even Captain Holmes accepts that you couldn’t go below MSA relying solely on the AINS:
Mahon died in 1986, from a type of cancer that developed in his sinus. (Holmes p397) Holmes would have it that the cancer was brought on by the Court of Appeal and Privy Council “judgements”. It may well have been the other way around, because malignant tumours are known to spread secondary tumours to other parts of the body, often well before the primary tumour is diagnosed, and there’s very little of anything else between the sinus and the brain.
In any case, as Gordon Vette says in Impact Erebus, Collins would never have gone lower than 16,000 feet, AINS or no AINS, without being visual. (Holmes p64)
But then this ridiculous nonsense:
“Having established that they ‘had the ground’, and in an example of excellent and professional airmanship, he took the DC-10 down in two great orbits …” (Holmes p64)
and smashed it into a mountain.
Then Holmes hammers home the point that they were VMC. Actually, they were not – but Holmes says they were never warned of the danger of flying visually below cloud. Three hundred pages later he discloses a piece of information that establishes the opposite. (Holmes p369). So he can’t even carry out a simple whitewashing exercise without cocking the whole thing up. Holmes is either very stupid or very careless, or both. An indication of the amount of care and attention he applied to his project is provided by his photograph of Exhibit 164. The whole point of that document to the ‘believers’ is that it shows a track to the Byrd Reporting Point, followed by a short dog-leg left to McMurdo Station – but all of that part is chopped off. And he couldn’t even be bothered getting a proof reader involved, because throughout his book he uses the word “judgement” to describe court decisions. (To be fair, he finally gets it right on the last occasion, at page 437, where it’s “judgment”.) It also appears that Holmes didn’t bother running his book past Paul Davison QC before it was published. Had he done so, he would have had “judgement” corrected (and he would have been asked to tone down the over-the-top flattery) - but most importantly, he would have been asked to remove the sentence stating that Captain Collins had visited Operation Deep Freeze for a briefing. Even if Holmes was too thick to appreciate the significance of that information, Davison certainly wasn’t. Note that the information was provided to Holmes by Davison, it being contained in an email sent to Davison on 5 December 2009 (Holmes p435). It appears that at this time, Davison was representing Mrs Collins on some matter connected with the accident (Holmes p93). Given that Davison obtained the information in the course of his acting for Mrs Collins, there is no possibility of his consenting to its publication, because it’s completely against Mrs Collins’ interests. If her late husband was briefed on sector whiteout, there is no possibility of any exoneration and history will judge him to be the person primarily responsible. Were it not for Holmes’ book, the fact of the air force briefing would never have come out. Davison probably passed over his files to Holmes, on the assumption that he would be sent a draft to check before the book was published. He would have been somewhat concerned in September 2011, when the book was released without him having received a draft. As he read his autographed copy (“To Paul from Paul” “XXXXX OOOOO”) things weren’t too bad, until page 369: “* * holy f*cking sh*t! * * may not be able to * * McMurdo today. Very hard to tell the difference between the ice and the clouds * * I’m gonna * * * * that H*lmes * * Stupid f*cking ***tox!! * *”
An apologetic Holmes probably sought to excuse his blunder by referring to "the fates" (Holmes p62).
Someone who might have saved the stupid twit from himself was Macfarlane, who was sent a draft of each “gripping” chapter (Holmes p10). I don’t know what Mcfarlane was doing with himself while he attempted to read page 369 in Chapter 25, but he could not have been paying close attention, probably because of cartoons.
“But the giant upon whose shoulders I stood and relied was retired law lecturer Stuart Macfarlane. Stuart Macfarlane is a walking authority on the Erebus disaster and his weighty tome The Erebus Papers, published in 1991, is nothing less than the Erebus encyclopedia. No serious study of Erebus can be undertaken without a copy of this book at an author’s side. Stuart’s wife and collaborator, Alison, says that after Stuart read the Court of Appeal decision on Mahon and decided the Court was being ‘silly’, he didn’t come home for dinner for about eight years, working, as he was, on what became of the impossibly exhaustive The Erebus Papers.” (Holmes p12)
Eight years, for that? The only use of The Erebus Papers is its extracts from the evidence, but Macfarlane was deliberately selective. For example, he decided to omit Exhibit 12, because it did not suit his purposes. (Exhibit 12 was the audio transcript of the briefing, which established that the briefed track was to McMurdo Station.) The material that Macfarlane wrote, which appears under the “Editorial Comment” headings, has all the hallmarks of someone who thinks they are very clever and who are actually quite the opposite. For instance, at page 670, he postulates an experiment regarding Captain Simpson’s various statements, the suggestion being that Simpson changed his story. But Macfarlane’s own book answers the whole Simpson issue. The captain, who now has my sympathies, was not looking at “16448.0E” when he did his “eye-balling” at the briefing. He was looking at “16641.0E”, which was 17 minutes west of the TACAN, at 166.58.E. That’s why he estimated the difference as 10nm. In other words, Simpson wasn’t looking at one of the flight plans provided by Captain Wilson. He was looking at the flight plan at page 104 of Macfarlane’s book, which had the NDB waypoint, and which was dated 1977. That flight plan was definitely available at the briefing, because it was used to program the simulator (Macfarlane p220). If you read Simpson’s evidence with that in mind, it all falls into place. At the briefing, he saw a 17 minute difference, which he estimated at being about 10nm. In the cockpit on the morning of the flight, he thinks he’s looking at the same flight plan, but he isn’t. When he gets down there, it’s blue skies, and he flies right of track down the Sound, then turns left towards McMurdo Station. He expected to be going left of track just before reaching the huts in the distance, but notes that he’s going left of track while he’s still 27nm away. That night, he asks himself how the hell he could have estimated two degrees of longitude as being only 10nm and he mentions it to Captain Johnson the following day. Why, then, did Simpson’s evidence come out the way it did? Macfarlane again provides the answer. In his statement to Chippindale made in March 1980, Simpson said that Wilson had flight plans from “previous years” flights (Macfarlane p 354). The flight plans Wilson actually provided were from the previous week’s flight. Simpson’s statement, therefore, is consistent with him having sighted a flight plan dated in 1977 with the NDB co-ordinates: 166E. Simpson’s statement was provided to ALPA’s lawyer, who just happened to be Davison (Macfarlane p353). He prepared a brief of evidence and shoved it under Simpson’s nose just before he was to give evidence before the Royal Commission (Macfarlane p661). Remember that the union didn’t want Simpson looking at anything around 166E, because that’s McMurdo Station. If the briefed track was to McMurdo Station, then Captain Collins made a very bad mistake when he did not sort out the conflict that he would have noted the night before. The union wanted Simpson looking at 164E, so the phrase “previous years” didn’t suit, because it meant that Simpson wasn’t looking at Wilson’s 164E flight plans from the flight a week before. Simpson’s brief of evidence, prepared by Davison, was as follows: “During the briefing Captain Wilson produced flight plans from a previous flight to the Antarctic for our perusal. (Macfarlane p227) The phrase “a previous flight” covers the flight a week before, whereas the phrase “previous years” does not. Problem solved, at least for the union. No so for Simpson, because he then had to explain how he could possibly have estimated two degrees of longitude as being only 10nm, and he doesn’t do a very good job of it (Macfarlane pp680-685). Simpson, through no fault of his own, was manoeuvred into an impossible position, by ALPA. If his brief of evidence was as per his March 1980 statement and contained the phrase “previous years”, then the truth would have emerged in cross-examination. Instead, Mahon was left with the firm view that Simpson believed, at the briefing, that the track was to a point two whole degrees west of McMurdo Station, rather than a mere 17 minutes. Yet Simpson actually left the briefing with the understanding conveyed by the audio, which was that the track was to McMurdo Station, to a point about 10nm west of the TACAN – but not then knowing that a track to that point from Cape Hallett went over Erebus. When he sat in the cockpit on the morning of his flight, checking his waypoints against his chart, he had a different waypoint which, when he checked it, was out in the middle of the Sound, away from McMurdo Station. Seems to be a reasonable spot for it to be, he thought, given that we’re only there for sightseeing. Given that he thought he was looking at the same flight plan that he had seen at the briefing, his impressions of the waypoint got lumped together in his memory, so that an impression he had in the cockpit was recalled as being an impression he also had at the briefing. This is probably why ALPA were able to slip various things past him, but the inquiry was not supposed to be a game for lawyers. The object of the exercise was to find out why 257 people died, and in that regard, it was a miserable failure. Holmes p15: “The Cast – Paul Davison QC: … Tore the navigation evidence apart.” That’s the only thing that Holmes gets right.
Chippindale got far closer to the truth than Mahon ever did. In fact, he went easy on the captain. Instead of citing the decision to go scud running when at FL180, Chippendale referred to “the decision of the captain to continue the flight at low level toward an area of poor surface and horizon definition when the crew was not certain of their position …” (Chippindale p53). On completion of the second orbit, at 0047:23GMT, the aircraft was at 2000 feet, headed back towards Erebus: “Yes Alt Cap (nav) track”. Vette says that what they saw out the window looked like McMurdo Sound, with a false horizon. Having seen that video of an Antarctic whiteout, that’s bull****. What they saw was a wall of white, with no horizon, hence “We might have to drop down to fifteen hundred here I think”. The transcript should have read “We might have to turn around and climb back to 160”. Instead, the captain continued on for a full two minutes, before deciding to climb out. Mahon played various wordgames with the phrase “not certain of their position”, but the plain fact of the matter is that if the captain was actually certain of his position (which is doubtful), he had no right to be.
Given number of mistakes made by the captain, the co-ordinates issue tends to fall by the wayside - and the captain was complicit in that as well, given his failure to resolve the conflict in the information he took from the briefing. If he was briefed on sector whiteout at Operation Deep Freeze, then I’d give him 85% of the blame, with 10% to F/O Cassin for not saying, at the appropriate time, “But didn’t you say ten minutes ago that it was very difficult to tell the difference between the cloud and ice?” F/O Lucas, who also attended the briefing at Operation Deep Freeze, gets the remaining 5%, for not wondering, while seated in the cabin, why the aircraft was orbiting when doing a radar-assisted descent.
The accident was caused by pilot error. It’s just another of example of someone attempting to fly VMC in instrument meteorological conditions. Obviously, AirNZ’s Flight Operations section made a series of terrible blunders, but all would have been well if the crew had done the job they were paid to do.
Holmes babbles on interminably about how the more you read Mahon, the more impressive he becomes. I’ve read his report many times over, and his book a few times less, and go in the opposite direction. I would not go quite as far as Gemmell (“He was an idiot.”) but there was something strange going on in his head when he wrote his report. There was no need for the “orchestrated litany of lies” finding, and he knew it. The explanation he gives in his book makes no sense, not do his various conspiracy theories. One example is the lack of passenger photos showing Ross Island. He spends two whole pages on this (Verdict on Erebus pp258,259), implying that someone might have removed the photos. Mahon says: “If you looked at the flight path of the aircraft as it completed its two orbits, it was obvious that there had been four occasions upon which the aircraft had been side-on to Ross Island.” Obvious? What was actually obvious was that there was no occasion when the aircraft was side-on to Ross Island, because it was banked about 20 degrees as it turned, hence the lack of photos.Mahon died in 1986, from a type of cancer that developed in his sinus. (Holmes p397) Holmes would have it that the cancer was brought on by the Court of Appeal and Privy Council “judgements”. It may well have been the other way around, because malignant tumours are known to spread secondary tumours to other parts of the body, often well before the primary tumour is diagnosed, and there’s very little of anything else between the sinus and the brain.
Last edited by ampan; 1st Feb 2012 at 23:59.
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One example is the lack of passenger photos showing Ross Island. He spends two whole pages on this (Verdict on Erebus pp258,259), implying that someone might have removed the photos. Mahon says: “If you looked at the flight path of the aircraft as it completed its two orbits, it was obvious that there had been four occasions upon which the aircraft had been side-on to Ross Island.” Obvious? What was actually obvious was that there was no occasion when the aircraft was side-on to Ross Island, because it was banked about 20 degrees as it turned, hence the lack of photos.
a) there was nothing of interest to see and photo. Just a mass of grey not worth wasting one of the 24 or 36 pictures on your one or two rolls of film that you've taken along
b) if a photo had been taken, the developer may have innocently decided it was not worth developing as it was just a mass of grey
I took a little personal interest from Holmes comment page 382 where he attempted to dig the knife into Chippindale...
Mr Ron Chippindale, reported the Star was unavailable for comment. His office said he was in the United Kingdom and he would not be back until July. THis would have been, no doubt, one of his important trips on the taxpayer to the northern hemisphere summer. A day later, he was found in Bedford.
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I end up in Bletchley Park. Maybe Mr Chips was honing his codebreaking skills. Holmes would have meant no offence to the residents of Bedford who are alive, but woe betide any who are not.
The primary criminal exposed in Holmes' book is Chippindale. Was Chippindale a criminal? Of course not. The reason for the appearance of such allegations is not that they're true. The reason is that a driver lost control of his vehicle in February 2008. Those who have yet to be killed by a reckless driver while taking their morning walk are treated very differently by Holmes. It's almost as if he regards a person's death as the commission by that person of a very serious crime. Before they died, they were merely dislikeable. After, they're scum.
The best example is Holmes' treatment of Gemmell. Throughout the book Holmes drops numerous hints suggesting that Gemmell tampered with the evidence. But then, at page 310, we get this:
"Gemmell has been accused by many of removing documents from the crash site and causing them to disappear. There is no evidence that he did so and he always emphatically denied any improper behaviour. And none has ever been proven."
Holmes could have made similar statements about the various allegations he makes against Chippindale, but does he? No.
I think the relevant expression is "cluck" "cluck".
The primary criminal exposed in Holmes' book is Chippindale. Was Chippindale a criminal? Of course not. The reason for the appearance of such allegations is not that they're true. The reason is that a driver lost control of his vehicle in February 2008. Those who have yet to be killed by a reckless driver while taking their morning walk are treated very differently by Holmes. It's almost as if he regards a person's death as the commission by that person of a very serious crime. Before they died, they were merely dislikeable. After, they're scum.
The best example is Holmes' treatment of Gemmell. Throughout the book Holmes drops numerous hints suggesting that Gemmell tampered with the evidence. But then, at page 310, we get this:
"Gemmell has been accused by many of removing documents from the crash site and causing them to disappear. There is no evidence that he did so and he always emphatically denied any improper behaviour. And none has ever been proven."
Holmes could have made similar statements about the various allegations he makes against Chippindale, but does he? No.
I think the relevant expression is "cluck" "cluck".
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Exoneration sought for Erebus crew
First officer Gregory Cassin of the DC-10 jet airliner that crashed into Mt Erebus.
United Future leader Peter Dunne has added his voice to calls for Parliament to officially clear the pilot and crew of the 1979 Air New Zealand Erebus crash of blame.
The United Future leader plans to talk to the Government and other parties about what could be done.
The crash killed 257 people. The original inquiry by chief accident inspector Ron Chippindale blamed pilot error but a subsequent royal commission of inquiry led by Justice Peter Mahon blamed the airline for changing the navigation co-ordinates without telling the pilot Captain Jim Collins and First Officer Greg Cassin.
Writing in the Herald today, Mr Dunne describes the Erebus disaster as "our version of the Kennedy assassination", an event that scarred the nation and in which everyone knew where they were at the time they heard the news.Mr Dunne said he read Paul Holmes' book Daughters of Erebus which also calls on Parliament to exonerate the crew. And the pending departure of Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe, who apologised to the families for the airline's handling of it, had also been a catalyst.Mr Dunne said the most obvious course the Parliament could take would be to pass a motion of exoneration.
Another option might be a Government statement.Former Transport Minister Maurice Williamson tabled the Mahon report in Parliament in 1999 and had thought by doing so he had corrected the official record. He later learned both reports had equal status with the International Civil Aviation Organisation
First officer Gregory Cassin of the DC-10 jet airliner that crashed into Mt Erebus.
United Future leader Peter Dunne has added his voice to calls for Parliament to officially clear the pilot and crew of the 1979 Air New Zealand Erebus crash of blame.
The United Future leader plans to talk to the Government and other parties about what could be done.
The crash killed 257 people. The original inquiry by chief accident inspector Ron Chippindale blamed pilot error but a subsequent royal commission of inquiry led by Justice Peter Mahon blamed the airline for changing the navigation co-ordinates without telling the pilot Captain Jim Collins and First Officer Greg Cassin.
Writing in the Herald today, Mr Dunne describes the Erebus disaster as "our version of the Kennedy assassination", an event that scarred the nation and in which everyone knew where they were at the time they heard the news.Mr Dunne said he read Paul Holmes' book Daughters of Erebus which also calls on Parliament to exonerate the crew. And the pending departure of Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe, who apologised to the families for the airline's handling of it, had also been a catalyst.Mr Dunne said the most obvious course the Parliament could take would be to pass a motion of exoneration.
Another option might be a Government statement.Former Transport Minister Maurice Williamson tabled the Mahon report in Parliament in 1999 and had thought by doing so he had corrected the official record. He later learned both reports had equal status with the International Civil Aviation Organisation
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Another ill-informed idiot
Peter Dunne: Time to heal Erebus wounds after all these years - Opinion - NZ Herald News
Peter Dunne: Time to heal Erebus wounds after all these years0comments
Add By Peter Dunne 5:30 AM Thursday Feb 9, 2012
The families of the Air New Zealand TE901 flight crew need the closure a formal exoneration would bring. Photo / NZ HeraldAmong the many comments following the announcement by Air New Zealand's chief executive Rob Fyfe that he would be stepping down was a reference to the fact he was the first Air New Zealand chief executive to apologise for the airline's handling of the Mt Erebus tragedy more than 30 years ago.
However, as this and Paul Holmes' recent powerful book poignantly remind us, there is still unfinished business with the Erebus affair - specifically the exoneration of Captain Jim Collins, First Officer Greg Cassin and the crew of TE901 for what happened on November 28, 1979.
Erebus is our version of the Kennedy assassination - an event that scarred our nation. An event that all who were alive at the time have vivid memories of, where we were when we heard the news, and the controversies, conspiracies, and suspicions that have played such a significant role in the unfolding of subsequent events.
Justice Peter Mahon's seminal commission of inquiry conclusion that a navigational programming error, of which the flight crew was unaware and that sent TE901 winging its way into a mountain, has never been credibly challenged.
This is despite the uproar at the time and the successful legal proceedings over the judge's colourful descriptions of the airline's actions as "a predetermined plan of deception" and "an orchestrated litany of lies".
The fact remains that it was the navigational programming errors that predetermined TE901's fate that awful day, not the actions of Captain Collins and his crew.
Over the years, various loose ends in this saga have been resolved. Nearly two decades after the crash, Justice Mahon's report was tabled formally in Parliament, implying official recognition at last of its conclusions.
Air New Zealand's apology and the 30th anniversary memorial visits to the site in November 2009 were a further step forward. But through all this, one step has remained untaken - there has been no formal exoneration of Captain Collins and his crew for their actions, and consequently no real lifting of the burden their families have had to carry ever since.
So while no one today accepts the preposterous notion put forward at the time that they deliberately and knowingly flew their aircraft into the side of a mountain, the absence of an exoneration has allowed the lingering suspicion to remain that maybe there was more to this after all than Justice Mahon's findings, despite the fact no evidence was produced to support this.
Some may say Erebus was a long time ago, and taking action now to exonerate the crew simply opens up old wounds. Well, the crew's families have had to live with those wounds for more than 30 years now, and it is time to heal them. Besides that, Captain Collins and his crew did not cause the crash, the navigational co-ordinates programming error did.
While Air New Zealand's belated apology was a good start, it needs to be backed up by a formal exoneration by Parliament of the flight crew.
By Peter Dunne
Peter Dunne: Time to heal Erebus wounds after all these years0comments
Add By Peter Dunne 5:30 AM Thursday Feb 9, 2012
The families of the Air New Zealand TE901 flight crew need the closure a formal exoneration would bring. Photo / NZ HeraldAmong the many comments following the announcement by Air New Zealand's chief executive Rob Fyfe that he would be stepping down was a reference to the fact he was the first Air New Zealand chief executive to apologise for the airline's handling of the Mt Erebus tragedy more than 30 years ago.
However, as this and Paul Holmes' recent powerful book poignantly remind us, there is still unfinished business with the Erebus affair - specifically the exoneration of Captain Jim Collins, First Officer Greg Cassin and the crew of TE901 for what happened on November 28, 1979.
Erebus is our version of the Kennedy assassination - an event that scarred our nation. An event that all who were alive at the time have vivid memories of, where we were when we heard the news, and the controversies, conspiracies, and suspicions that have played such a significant role in the unfolding of subsequent events.
Justice Peter Mahon's seminal commission of inquiry conclusion that a navigational programming error, of which the flight crew was unaware and that sent TE901 winging its way into a mountain, has never been credibly challenged.
This is despite the uproar at the time and the successful legal proceedings over the judge's colourful descriptions of the airline's actions as "a predetermined plan of deception" and "an orchestrated litany of lies".
The fact remains that it was the navigational programming errors that predetermined TE901's fate that awful day, not the actions of Captain Collins and his crew.
Over the years, various loose ends in this saga have been resolved. Nearly two decades after the crash, Justice Mahon's report was tabled formally in Parliament, implying official recognition at last of its conclusions.
Air New Zealand's apology and the 30th anniversary memorial visits to the site in November 2009 were a further step forward. But through all this, one step has remained untaken - there has been no formal exoneration of Captain Collins and his crew for their actions, and consequently no real lifting of the burden their families have had to carry ever since.
So while no one today accepts the preposterous notion put forward at the time that they deliberately and knowingly flew their aircraft into the side of a mountain, the absence of an exoneration has allowed the lingering suspicion to remain that maybe there was more to this after all than Justice Mahon's findings, despite the fact no evidence was produced to support this.
Some may say Erebus was a long time ago, and taking action now to exonerate the crew simply opens up old wounds. Well, the crew's families have had to live with those wounds for more than 30 years now, and it is time to heal them. Besides that, Captain Collins and his crew did not cause the crash, the navigational co-ordinates programming error did.
While Air New Zealand's belated apology was a good start, it needs to be backed up by a formal exoneration by Parliament of the flight crew.
By Peter Dunne
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- there has been no formal exoneration of Captain Collins and his crew for their actions, and consequently no real lifting of the burden their families have had to carry ever since.
Well, the crew's families have had to live with those wounds for more than 30 years now, and it is time to heal them. Besides that, Captain Collins and his crew did not cause the crash, the navigational co-ordinates programming error did.
Rubbish, typical argument from followers of Mahons reasoning, without any appreciation of route MSA's, and the illegal use of AINS as a primary navigation aid below route MSA. What about the families of the Nav section, the nav section made mistakes but not mistakes that would have caused the crash if everybody else in the team had carried out their tasks properly.
Mr Dunne said he read Paul Holmes' book Daughters of Erebus which also calls on Parliament to exonerate the crew
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I took a little personal interest from Holmes comment page 382 where he attempted to dig the knife into Chippindale...
... I'm not sure if he is attempting to paint Bedford as a small backwater, but next time he may want to investigate if there are any places around Bedford (say 12 miles SW) where it would be appropriate for Chippindale to be.
Mr Ron Chippindale, reported the Star was unavailable for comment. His office said he was in the United Kingdom and he would not be back until July. THis would have been, no doubt, one of his important trips on the taxpayer to the northern hemisphere summer. A day later, he was found in Bedford.
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Ah ha: Cranfield.
If Parliament is going to consider Mr Dunne's motion, then it should first be referred to a select committee, rather than relying on a report written by a judge who was in the process of losing his marbles.
A case could be made for exonerating F/O Lucas and the two flight engineers, but not the captain and the yes-man seated to his right. ("Might have to drop down to 1500 feet here" "Yeah, probably see further anyway" - "Might have to turn around and climb back to MSA" "Yeah, probably won't kill everyone on board")
I would hope that Mr Dunne does some homework before diving in: "So while no one today accepts the preposterous notion put forward at the time that they deliberately and knowingly flew their aircraft into the side of a mountain ..." No such notion was put forward. It appears that the only research Dunne's done is to read Holmes' book, but the value of that book as an objective reference tool is made clear on page 30:
"Finally, I make no apology for the emphatic views expressed in this book. I have not consulted some who for thirty years have held Mahon to be wrong and have called for the pilots to shoulder at least some of the blame for the Erebus disaster. I have not tried to contact those who for thirty years and for their own various reasons have denied the truth. Above all, the simple logic of Mahon, endorsed by the Privy Council, exonerates the aircrew."
If Parliament is going to consider Mr Dunne's motion, then it should first be referred to a select committee, rather than relying on a report written by a judge who was in the process of losing his marbles.
A case could be made for exonerating F/O Lucas and the two flight engineers, but not the captain and the yes-man seated to his right. ("Might have to drop down to 1500 feet here" "Yeah, probably see further anyway" - "Might have to turn around and climb back to MSA" "Yeah, probably won't kill everyone on board")
I would hope that Mr Dunne does some homework before diving in: "So while no one today accepts the preposterous notion put forward at the time that they deliberately and knowingly flew their aircraft into the side of a mountain ..." No such notion was put forward. It appears that the only research Dunne's done is to read Holmes' book, but the value of that book as an objective reference tool is made clear on page 30:
"Finally, I make no apology for the emphatic views expressed in this book. I have not consulted some who for thirty years have held Mahon to be wrong and have called for the pilots to shoulder at least some of the blame for the Erebus disaster. I have not tried to contact those who for thirty years and for their own various reasons have denied the truth. Above all, the simple logic of Mahon, endorsed by the Privy Council, exonerates the aircrew."
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Above all, the simple logic of Mahon, endorsed by the Privy Council, exonerates the aircrew."
There were what in retrospect can be recognised as having been faults or mistakes at the enquiry but which, in the circumstances in which the enquiry had to be held and the judges report prepared, appear to their lordships for the most part to have been manifestations of human fallibility that are easy to understand and excuse.
Hardly an exoneration endorsed by the Privy Council.
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Holmes’ deliberately ignores the fact that the cause of the accident had no relevance in the Privy Council case. The issue was whether Mahon was entitled to go outside his terms of reference and make a finding that the Air NZ witnesses conspired together to commit perjury. The five judges who sat on the Privy Council were unanimous in holding that Mahon went well beyond his brief, but Lord Diplock took the opportunity to compliment Mahon on his investigative work. This is Holmes’ so-called “endorsement”, but it was nothing more than one judge sweetening a bitter pill about to be swallowed by another. (It’s similar to the praise heaped onto the airmanship of Captain Collins.) The Privy Council actually went further than it needed to, in that it found that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. This annoys Holmes:
“Despite this, Mahon’s ‘orchestrated litany of lies’ simply could not be proven, apparently. ‘There had been no material of any probative value on which to base a finding that a pre-determined plan of deception ever existed.’ (PC judgment p662) This despite their Lordships’ acceptance that they had not been there through the long 75 days weighing the evidence and hearing the witnesses in person, as Mahon had. Stuart Macfarlane, the Erebus researcher, says that in the end, if what the airline witnesses said was true, then the airline made 54 mistakes concerning the flight path of the airliner and 177 mistakes regarding altitude. It wasn’t possible for a commercial airline to make that many mistakes. Therefore, the airline was lying.” (Holmes p400)
The nincompoop’s argument is that there is an upper limit to the number of mistakes that an airline can admit to, above which, everything said by the airline becomes a lie. And to get to 177 mistakes regarding altitude, Holme’s relies on the work of a similarly-gifted intellectual powerhouse, being the deranged Macfarlane, who gets most of his 177 mistakes as follows:
“Not reading or becoming aware of the contents of the [President of McConnell Douglas’s] article after it was printed and distributed (eleven mistakes). (Mistakes 14-24)
Not becoming aware that the airline had printed one million copies of an article by the President on low level Antartic flights. Seven mistakes. (Mistakes 25-31)
Not being told by any of the airline executives on the Antarctic flights from 18 October 1977 to 21 November 1979 that they had been on flights under 16000 feet. There were 11 flights over two years, but there was no evidence on how many executives and their wives were on each flight, only Mr Thomson’s evidence that it was the usual practice. If one assumes, on average, one executive per flight (and I would welcome precise figures) that is mistakes by seven persons on 11 occasions (77 mistakes). … (Mistakes 32-108)” (Vette pp338,339)
“Despite this, Mahon’s ‘orchestrated litany of lies’ simply could not be proven, apparently. ‘There had been no material of any probative value on which to base a finding that a pre-determined plan of deception ever existed.’ (PC judgment p662) This despite their Lordships’ acceptance that they had not been there through the long 75 days weighing the evidence and hearing the witnesses in person, as Mahon had. Stuart Macfarlane, the Erebus researcher, says that in the end, if what the airline witnesses said was true, then the airline made 54 mistakes concerning the flight path of the airliner and 177 mistakes regarding altitude. It wasn’t possible for a commercial airline to make that many mistakes. Therefore, the airline was lying.” (Holmes p400)
The nincompoop’s argument is that there is an upper limit to the number of mistakes that an airline can admit to, above which, everything said by the airline becomes a lie. And to get to 177 mistakes regarding altitude, Holme’s relies on the work of a similarly-gifted intellectual powerhouse, being the deranged Macfarlane, who gets most of his 177 mistakes as follows:
“Not reading or becoming aware of the contents of the [President of McConnell Douglas’s] article after it was printed and distributed (eleven mistakes). (Mistakes 14-24)
Not becoming aware that the airline had printed one million copies of an article by the President on low level Antartic flights. Seven mistakes. (Mistakes 25-31)
Not being told by any of the airline executives on the Antarctic flights from 18 October 1977 to 21 November 1979 that they had been on flights under 16000 feet. There were 11 flights over two years, but there was no evidence on how many executives and their wives were on each flight, only Mr Thomson’s evidence that it was the usual practice. If one assumes, on average, one executive per flight (and I would welcome precise figures) that is mistakes by seven persons on 11 occasions (77 mistakes). … (Mistakes 32-108)” (Vette pp338,339)
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blah blah blah
Paul Holmes: A few words can finally give closure on Erebus - Opinion - NZ Herald News
A few words can finally give closure on Erebus
By Paul Holmes 5:30 AM Saturday Mar 3, 2012
I know you've got heaps on your plates, but I feel I have to draw your attention again to the campaign by a few of us for some justice for the families of Jim Collins and Greg Cassin, the captain and first officer respectively on the 1979 Erebus flight.
For 30 years it has been plain as day that neither pilot had any responsibility for that accident. Justice Peter Mahon's report, finally tabled in 1999, holds the pilots absolutely clear of any blame.
I could be asking for a ministerial withdrawal of the Chippindale report from the International Civil Aviation Organisation. I should. But I'm not. I'm not because I think this would be too hard for the Government.
What we're asking for is simple. All I and the Collins family want is a clear, simply worded parliamentary exoneration of the pilots for any responsibility for the accident. I don't want any aggro. I don't want any relitigation of all the old nasty things that went on. All we want is a simple statement to free the spirits of the two families.
But I'm getting a sense of ... drift. When I published Daughters of Erebus I sent 121 books to the MPs, with an open letter to them. I received 30 replies, some of them generous. From others, I heard nothing. One or two MPs have read the book and been moved and shocked by what they found. Peter Dunne is emphatic that there has to be some kind of statement of exoneration. He has no doubt, and I know Peter has followed the case for years.
But I don't get a sense of any burning parliamentary need to do something. Yet the Erebus aftermath is up there with many of the cruelties inflicted on innocent people in this country. It happened under our very noses. It happened under National. With respect, National has a chance to put it right.
Most of the men involved in it - and they were all men - set out deliberately to bamboozle the public. But Erebus was a very simple bungle of an accident caused by a head office deception of the pilots. But when Justice Mahon dared to tell that truth, the entire Wellington and Auckland legal establishments turned on him.
Daughters of Erebus explores the cruel and wicked machinations that went on after the accident but also explains the human toll endured by the Collins family. When Captain Collins flew that aircraft into the mountain that day, he took 256 others with him, he got the blame and he left behind a wife and four young girls who have never recovered from his receiving the initial blame. The headlines from the chief inspector's report were hugely damaging to Collins. But they suited the Government, Civil Aviation, the Ministry of Transport and the airline perfectly.
The chief inspector's report was reprehensible: the pilots were flying irresponsibly, they were too low and they didn't know where they were. He was wrong on all counts.
The Chippindale version of the crash was given vast publicity in the days before the royal commission started. It had a tremendous effect in confirming to public opinion that the pilots were way too low and they didn't know where they were. To shore his argument up, the chief inspector took himself off to London and made his own copy of the tape, making change after change detrimental to the aircrew. No one knew he was doing it. This is the CVR transcript he published.
Then he said some on the flight deck were trying to get the pilot to straighten up and fly right. This never happened. Chippindale made it up. It seems incredible, I know, but that's what he did. Only in the last 20 or 30 seconds was there concern that something wasn't right.
Mahon showed, with his unassailable logic, how the accident happened. The destination co-ordinates had been changed and the pilots not told. And they had been briefed that they would be flying straight down McMurdo Sound, its flat white sea ice stretching infinitely ahead of them. The mountain was way out to the left. Yeah, right. It was a head office muddle.
And Mahon saw that no one alive in any way related to that flight was going to take the blame. And the blame rested solely with the persons who changed the co-ordinates by miles and did not tell Captain Collins.
This is all fairly well-canvassed, I know. But what happened in the trail of it all was a breathtaking, scandalous, concerted process of cover-ups, coercions, obfuscations and simple bloody lies by the Government, the air accident inspectorate, Civil Aviation and, sorry to say it but it can't be avoided, the most senior people in the state-owned airline.
I implore our MPs to give some effort and thought to the matter of a simple exoneration of the pilots. To be read out in Parliament. For the families of the pilots to be there to see it happen. I believe this is something every member of Parliament would be proud to tell their children they were part of.
I'm imploring our MPs, the House itself, to go some way to mending the hearts of the families of the Erebus flight crew.
A few words can finally give closure on Erebus
By Paul Holmes 5:30 AM Saturday Mar 3, 2012
I know you've got heaps on your plates, but I feel I have to draw your attention again to the campaign by a few of us for some justice for the families of Jim Collins and Greg Cassin, the captain and first officer respectively on the 1979 Erebus flight.
For 30 years it has been plain as day that neither pilot had any responsibility for that accident. Justice Peter Mahon's report, finally tabled in 1999, holds the pilots absolutely clear of any blame.
I could be asking for a ministerial withdrawal of the Chippindale report from the International Civil Aviation Organisation. I should. But I'm not. I'm not because I think this would be too hard for the Government.
What we're asking for is simple. All I and the Collins family want is a clear, simply worded parliamentary exoneration of the pilots for any responsibility for the accident. I don't want any aggro. I don't want any relitigation of all the old nasty things that went on. All we want is a simple statement to free the spirits of the two families.
But I'm getting a sense of ... drift. When I published Daughters of Erebus I sent 121 books to the MPs, with an open letter to them. I received 30 replies, some of them generous. From others, I heard nothing. One or two MPs have read the book and been moved and shocked by what they found. Peter Dunne is emphatic that there has to be some kind of statement of exoneration. He has no doubt, and I know Peter has followed the case for years.
But I don't get a sense of any burning parliamentary need to do something. Yet the Erebus aftermath is up there with many of the cruelties inflicted on innocent people in this country. It happened under our very noses. It happened under National. With respect, National has a chance to put it right.
Most of the men involved in it - and they were all men - set out deliberately to bamboozle the public. But Erebus was a very simple bungle of an accident caused by a head office deception of the pilots. But when Justice Mahon dared to tell that truth, the entire Wellington and Auckland legal establishments turned on him.
Daughters of Erebus explores the cruel and wicked machinations that went on after the accident but also explains the human toll endured by the Collins family. When Captain Collins flew that aircraft into the mountain that day, he took 256 others with him, he got the blame and he left behind a wife and four young girls who have never recovered from his receiving the initial blame. The headlines from the chief inspector's report were hugely damaging to Collins. But they suited the Government, Civil Aviation, the Ministry of Transport and the airline perfectly.
The chief inspector's report was reprehensible: the pilots were flying irresponsibly, they were too low and they didn't know where they were. He was wrong on all counts.
The Chippindale version of the crash was given vast publicity in the days before the royal commission started. It had a tremendous effect in confirming to public opinion that the pilots were way too low and they didn't know where they were. To shore his argument up, the chief inspector took himself off to London and made his own copy of the tape, making change after change detrimental to the aircrew. No one knew he was doing it. This is the CVR transcript he published.
Then he said some on the flight deck were trying to get the pilot to straighten up and fly right. This never happened. Chippindale made it up. It seems incredible, I know, but that's what he did. Only in the last 20 or 30 seconds was there concern that something wasn't right.
Mahon showed, with his unassailable logic, how the accident happened. The destination co-ordinates had been changed and the pilots not told. And they had been briefed that they would be flying straight down McMurdo Sound, its flat white sea ice stretching infinitely ahead of them. The mountain was way out to the left. Yeah, right. It was a head office muddle.
And Mahon saw that no one alive in any way related to that flight was going to take the blame. And the blame rested solely with the persons who changed the co-ordinates by miles and did not tell Captain Collins.
This is all fairly well-canvassed, I know. But what happened in the trail of it all was a breathtaking, scandalous, concerted process of cover-ups, coercions, obfuscations and simple bloody lies by the Government, the air accident inspectorate, Civil Aviation and, sorry to say it but it can't be avoided, the most senior people in the state-owned airline.
I implore our MPs to give some effort and thought to the matter of a simple exoneration of the pilots. To be read out in Parliament. For the families of the pilots to be there to see it happen. I believe this is something every member of Parliament would be proud to tell their children they were part of.
I'm imploring our MPs, the House itself, to go some way to mending the hearts of the families of the Erebus flight crew.
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Prospector is still having trouble with his reading comprehension.
Go back a few pages in the report [ AC 808 page 836] and find]
Just what part of "convincingly clears" and "unchallenged" is so hard to understand?
Hardly an exoneration endorsed by the Privy Council.
The Royal Commission Report convincingly clears Captain Collins and First Officer Cassin of any suggestion that negligence on their part had in any way contributed to the disaster. That is unchallenged.
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Desert Dingo,
The Privy Council were not asked to give any opinion on the cause of the crash.
They were asked to rule on the question on the lack of natural justice displayed by Mahon in his findings.
That is why it is unchallenged, it was not their brief to offer any opinion as to the cause.
.
From Holmes
That this completely unqualified talking head, low hour private pilot, with his aviation accident record, can come up with such scandalous statements on the findings of many highly qualified aviators is unbelievable. Holmes in agreement with Mahon's findings, gives them less credence than they ever had.
.
.
The Privy Council were not asked to give any opinion on the cause of the crash.
They were asked to rule on the question on the lack of natural justice displayed by Mahon in his findings.
That is unchallenged.
.
From Holmes
This is all fairly well-canvassed, I know. But what happened in the trail of it all was a breathtaking, scandalous, concerted process of cover-ups, coercions, obfuscations and simple bloody lies by the Government, the air accident inspectorate, Civil Aviation and, sorry to say it but it can't be avoided, the most senior people in the state-owned airline.
.
.
Last edited by prospector; 4th Mar 2012 at 02:19.
All I and the Collins family want is a clear, simply worded parliamentary exoneration of the pilots for any responsibility for the accident.
Pauls involvement in aviation at an amateur level was unsuccessful.
The leap from flying VFR privately around NZ in a piston single to commercial widebody jet ops is a big one. Paul doesn't even seem to grasp that it's not ok to fly at 1500ft clean in a heavy jet at your home base let alone in a place youve never been in marginal weather.
If the pollies listen to him they're mad.
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From Holmes
Quote:
This is all fairly well-canvassed, I know. But what happened in the trail of it all was a breathtaking, scandalous, concerted process of cover-ups, coercions, obfuscations and simple bloody lies by the Government, the air accident inspectorate, Civil Aviation and, sorry to say it but it can't be avoided, the most senior people in the state-owned airline.
Quote:
This is all fairly well-canvassed, I know. But what happened in the trail of it all was a breathtaking, scandalous, concerted process of cover-ups, coercions, obfuscations and simple bloody lies by the Government, the air accident inspectorate, Civil Aviation and, sorry to say it but it can't be avoided, the most senior people in the state-owned airline.
I would have thought there were some big calls there, - and if that is his summing up then I can only imagine the author's thinking throughout the rest of his effort.
It seems almost a case of everyone else but........
Somehow I just cannot see it.