stillalbatross

Erebus book 'to right a wrong' - National - NZ Herald News

Now that Chippendale is dead, Paul Holmes has decided to state that he was corrupt and dishonest. And because the crew of the Erebus flight are also dead, he has decided that they should be absolved for their portion of the blame in the tragedy.

27/09

Well with the exception of Paul Holmes, Ooops that's who we are talking about.

While there may be some valid points in the book, this is a matter that needs to be left to lie. It's been dredged over pretty well in the past and even if some of the claims in the book are true the perpetrators are long gone. Nothing is to be achieved by opening up old sores.

Edit: I see Remoak has removed his post, which is where I got my quote from.

Anthill

Aside from the legacy of fine family memebers who have lost a husband and a Father, the tale remains a cautionary one. The Erebus accident remains a very valueable lesson for our industry and I would not be surprised if there are many younger pilots in our ranks who are unaware of this tragic, avoidable accident and subsequent events.

The book "The Erebus Papers' remains a most instructive discussion on the lengths and breadths to which those at the top will go to cover their @r$e when all the holes in the swiss cheese align. Political interference all the way to the highest offices in the Commonwealth was exposed. They even tried to have the Royal Commissioner declared insane for his unfavourable, yet astute, judgment.

There are lessons regarding the responsibilities of the CEO and management-they hold ulitmate responsibility for safety, but also for those in Command of the aircraft. If anything, this is accident which must re-inforce that at the end of the day, the Captain hold responsibility for the flight. However, it also shows what lengths a dysfunctional management will go to avoid their own responsibilities.

hoggsnortrupert

Let it be:

slackie

We could discuss how much of an idiot PHolmes is and what a danger he is to himself and others when he gets anywhere near an aircraft... remember when he owned (and multiple crashed!) a Stearman, having already proven his incompetence in various Cessnas.

henry crun

Be reasonable slackie, if we start discussing what you suggest about Holmes, the owners of Pprune will have to upgrade their site to cope with the extra bandwidth needed.

Massey058

Seriously whatever happened to honour and dignity? Paul Holmes is becoming an embarrassment and those comments are getting into Michael Laws territory.

Ron achieved a lot of great things in Air Safety Investigation. To out and out slander him in a book like some coward now he has passed is disgraceful.

I hope his book is as successful as his attempt to sing.

gobbledock

Below comment is spot on. Bureaucrats are a scourge on life.
It is interesting, many comments on here relate to 'letting things lay'. The problem is this - had an honest, open, transparent and morally correct path been taken by ANZ starting from the moment the accident occurred then these sort of discussions would unlikely be taking place now. The fact is that ANZ were nothing short of dispicable and morally irreprehensible, and so were Chippendales abilities...257 people died, and the names, reputations and legacy of the Pilots on that flight were stained, tarnished and trashed for no better reason than that they were sadly rostered on that day.

Thank god for Peter Mahon is all I can say.
The truth does deserve to be told, just because Chippendale has died does that mean the lives of the 257 should be forgotten?

Today ANZ is a completely different beast, Fyfe has worked miracles and the airline has achieved goals and milestones they should and can be very proud of. The airline is a truly remarkable outfit, and I agree that 'history' shouldn't be allowed to tarnish an organisation 32 years down the track. But sadly history can be described as an 'event, occurence, episode in time'. Erebus will always be part of ANZ's history, no matter what people will say, and history tends to contain positive and negative lessons and impact on life, sometimes centuries after the event.
Regardless of opinion, may the souls of the 257 continue to be remembered and may they sleep in peace.

henry crun

gobbledock: If you are implying that Paul Holmes is the man to tell the truth as you believe it, I feel sure there will be a considerable body of opinion in NZ who will disagree with you.

hoggsnortrupert

Look! this has been done already with Justice Mahon, and Gordon Vette.

You want honesty, you think you will get that from Holmes It is about time the New Zealand AIA, and perhaps to some degree the NZ government, and Air NZ stand up and formally acknowledge the very real and substantial price these two fine men paid.

We as an industry owe a huge debt to both, your CRM & Human Factors of today to a large degree were born out of this.

There is enough documentation about, for those that want the truth, apply to New Zealand Government Archives for the Chippendale accident report to start.

Then go to your local book sellers and ask for Impact Erebus, by Vette & Mahon.

Then get the findings of the court of inquiry led by Justice Peter Mahon.

To say you want HONESTY,@#$%me! what do you think these two men did what they did for?

Now as for the times, I remember where I was when this aircraft was first reported overdue, and who I was with.

Rob Muldoon was PM, the CEO of Air NZ Mourie Davis, both these guys where old school mates, and I believe at the time one of them (probably Davis) conspired to cover the details around this issue up.

Through the society of the time, Muldoon himself a friend of Mahons went to Peter Mahon, and asked him to lead an inquiry.

Muldoon probably thought at the time that Davis was not conspiring in any way, when Mahon found out inconsistencies and began to dig deeper, Muldoon and Davis's relationship became strained as Rob felt Davis had let him down.

By now Mahon was into it in depth, and Rob could not stop it, although he tried very hard to discredit Mahon to avert the avalanche of "****e" coming his way.

Muldoon and Mahons relationship to became irreparable & frayed, so much that Mahon could not go into his professional clubs, nor could he even go for a game of golf, such was the anger of Muldoon.

Gordon Vette took a lot of flak from his co-workers.

Two very fine men that stood up to be counted and did not back down against huge political, professional & social odds.

And you think Holmes will give honesty and closure, to say the 257 people are forgotten is a possibility with the younger aviators, but we owe it to them and to the industry to keep it alive through CRM & Human Factors courses for generations to come, and not to allow those that perished to have done so needlessly.

It is factually more open in all its ugliness today than it ever would have been
back then.

As raw today as then.

framer

The people wanting this know that mistakes were made by all parties. No good will come from dragging it up again and making everyone upset just to come around to the same point that mistakes were made by all parties involved. Nobody wins, lots of people get upset because it was such a tragic event involving so much loss of life.
The second you start pointing the finger only in one direction others are going to feel compelled to point at the other errors that lead to the disaster, and we enter into a circular, emotional, endless discussion.
The lessons have been learnt. If you want to discuss it openly then all the failings should be addressed. Best to let it be.

Wally Mk2

It took a couple of hundred years for 'Crud' to say sorry so sadly this subject has a looooong way to go before it's put to rest.
Lets just say that most know the truth behind this event and we have learnt much from it from aviation related matters to corporate matters, the latter still being applied daily am sure.


Wmk2

onetrack

The only substantial reason to revive the Erebus story, is, if lessons aren't being learnt from it, and practised daily.
I think this has been done, and as Wally states, the lessons are being applied.
There's no point in denigrating the dead people involved in the decision-making and deceit, they can't defend themselves.
The truth of the events have been exposed due to the correct application of judicial expertise, mostly by one man.
The judiciary is there to find the truth, regardless of cost... personal or monetary.
The innocent dead deserve this at least, and the truth is required to be uncovered to prevent future potential disasters.
I believe this has been done, and the aviation industry has moved on with one more costly lesson learnt.
The benefit in raking over long-dead coals to try and start another fire is dubious in the least... with no immediate obvious benefit... and the suspicion that the book under discussion, is just one mans vindictiveness and bitterness at work.

stillalbatross

Mahon and Vette only told the public what the US DoD had known about for decades. White-out wasn't some mystery never before seen, it was just one of the many problems with operating in Antartica. The US Navy alone had lost 10 aircraft in Antartica in the previous 3 decades. No surprise when AirNZ suggested flying down there that the US DoD wanted nothing to do with them.

The crew were completely lacking in experience for the situation they got themselves into. Morrie Davis may have panicked and behaved badly subsequent to the accident but he wasn't PinC.

Chippendale did nothing wrong. The crew broke the AirNZ SOPs, he saw them as responsible for putting the aircraft where they did. The buck stopped there.

ThePaperBoy

Wow - the buck stopped with the crew? You obviously know little about the crash or have your head in the sand (snow?). That way of thinking goes back to the old days prior to things like HFACS etc were developed to explain the latent organisational problems that contributed to the accident.

hoggsnortrupert

Now the albatross?

Is a bird of nature I truly admire and marvel at:

But! mate what you purport to be: "the buck stops there"

This does not help the issue, you have obviously not read the entire facts.
To say the buck stops with a crew that did not know, nor did they have any training in sector white out, the only thing they did wrong was descend below the company mini ma, they had not been trained in white out, you dont know what you are talking about.
You I put in the same camp as Paul Holmes:

How many flights before with company executive pilots, did they do exactly the same as this crew with non being formally training on, let alone understanding white out phenomena.

I would suggest you stop contaminating the issue with your poison:

rjtjrt

There was a TV mini series produced by TVNZ called "Erebus: The Aftermath" which dealt with the investigations.
After seeing it I read Gordon Vette's book, and McMahons book.

ThePaperBoy

Also, the crew were not the ones who changed the waypoint data, which put them on a collision course with the mountain.

The holes in the cheese relating to this accident were incredible. However, the crew only controlled the last slice of cheese.

hoggsnortrupert

Paper boy, very well put, excellent analogy, well done.

framer

What a surprise that this is getting out of shape.
If at any time, on any subject, your beliefs are in the extreme.....you are probably motivated by emotion, or mentally ill.
Yes ANZ should have contacted the crew and told them of the co-ordinate change.
Yes they should have put someone on the flightdeck who had Antarctic flying experience.
And yes, they lost the plot after the event.
Yes the crew decended below the altitude that they were legally allowed to be flying at (regardless of whether they were VMC or not)
And yes, the buck stops with the PIC.
Both sides of this argument are still focussing on laying the blame.
The focus needs to be on what can be learnt.
I think the lessons have been learnt, if someone offered me a flight down there tomorrow on ANZ I would accept in a flash.