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Mt Erebus Disaster 40th Anniversary

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Mt Erebus Disaster 40th Anniversary

Old 10th Dec 2019, 09:26
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Originally Posted by 3 Holer
ampan, I have debated many points with yourself and others on this subject and in this forum. As I advised mourno and suggest you do the same, search this website and you will find all the debate you want. The trouble with you and a few of your mates, when you start losing credibility from your debated points, you get personal. Not good form in any debate.

By the way I couldn't find a relative of mine in my utterances, nor could I find any relevance that the Mahon report was fireproof either.
So what you're saying is you actually have no idea yourself the requirements to descend below MSA, therefore because you don't know, the crew can't be at fault?
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 09:41
  #342 (permalink)  
 
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Events of the past few days (White Island) have reminded me. The Air Nz route had them flying 3,500 feet over the top of an active volcano. Also if the cloud break procedure was used to descend to 6,000 feet south of Erebus, if the aircraft then suffered a depressurisation event and had to return to NZ at 10,000, what was the instrument route they were supposed to take.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 12:37
  #343 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by krismiler
The 28 of November this year marks the 40th anniversary of the worst civil disaster in New Zealand’s history when Air New Zealand flight TE crashed in Antarctica killing 237 people.

May they Rest In Peace.

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/erebus-disaster
I remember it well, very sad and always remember it every 28 November... wasn't it 257 by the way, 237 plus 20 crew??? Just watched the Doco on the recovery the other night, they recovered 214 bodies in total. Those Police did a magnificent job and took 30-40 years to be fully recognised. Most still suffer from the images of people who's bodies they recovered.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 12:56
  #344 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Chris2303
Because Mahon found that the Air NZ Navigation section changed the flight plan but didn't specifically tell the operating crew.

Captain Collins spent sometime plotting the previous tracks, which led past Erebus instead of right into it, so that he had a mental picture of where he would be.

To my mind Brick Lucas should not have been removed to the cabin to make room for Peter Mulgrew whose presence on the flight deck must have been a distraction.

Remember that Mahon's "orchestrated litany of lies" was directed at Air NZ management, not at anyone else.
The descent below MSA was also dealt with by Mahon, indicating that while it is a fact that the crew descended below the stated minimum company altitude, the fact that photos from 2000 feet, glowing stories about the views available from that height and the fact that it appeared in the company's advertising literature (and Staff Newspaper) and was tolerated on just about every flight led Mahon to conclude that the crew would have felt they were acting in accordance with acceptable operational precedent.

The accident didn't happen in isolation. It is arguable that the crew were not properly briefed on phenomena such as sector whiteout and were thus ill-prepared by the airline... Captain Collins was known by all to be someone who was almost fanatical about preparation for every flight.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 13:21
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Originally Posted by noooby
I'll stand up and defend Ron. He was my tutor at University and one of the most honest men I have ever met in 30 years in Aviation. He had no axe to grind with anyone on any investigation. He reported what he found. You might not like what he said but his reports were factual and his Erebus report is still the ONLY factual legal document about the accident.

Did he tolerate idiots? No. He didn't think Aviation had any room for them. I tend to agree.

Try to argue with any of the facts in the report. They are all facts and none have ever been argued.

Killed by a kid who was late for work and was doing up his shoe laces while driving his car. Mounted the footpath and killed Ron instantly as Ron was walking home with the paper.

And people still send his widow hate mail on the Erebus anniversary. Grow up people. Ron told the facts as related directly to the accident. That was his job. The report is considered ground breaking in the world of Air Accident Investigation.
I think to be fair, any critique of Chippendale's (RIP) report has to take into consideration that the method of investigation and reporting up until that time did not take into consideration 'organisational factors' or even 'environmental factors' to an extent. He was likely constructing a report based on an investigation conducted in the standards for the time.

Justice Mahon, not schooled in methodology related to investigating accidents like this, perhaps naturally, must have asked himself the question... "OK, if this happened, what could have caused the crew to act in such a way???"

Having asked that question, he then proceeded to uncover shredding of documents, removal of pages from the binder, burglary of the Collins' home by person(s) unknown, where only Captain Collins' (RIP) papers were stolen, evidence given that brushed aside the change of coordinates... all paints a picture of some sort of coverup - if it wasn't so, then why did the company obfuscate and delay and in some instances, outright LIE about the causes and after the fact, abetted by the government of the day, set out to persecute and destroy the Royal Commissioner???

If people can digest all of the foregoing and then still say "it was Captain Collins' fault" then they are not listening.

Accident investigation changed forever after this accident, I would cite Dryden as a perfect example of the methods employed by Justice Mahon (RIP) were used to get to the root cause of that accident. Besides, didn't Mahon's final conclusion use the words "the single predominant cause..." ???
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 18:14
  #346 (permalink)  
 
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"Captain Collins spent sometime plotting the previous tracks, which led past Erebus instead of right into it, so that he had a mental picture of where he would be."

Yes. that point was stressed by some.

Yet still missed the fact they were on the wrong side of Beaufort Island, Beaufort Island was certainly visible, it shows up in Pax photo's.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 19:04
  #347 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by AerialPerspective
Captain Collins was known by all to be someone who was almost fanatical about preparation for every flight.
......... which is utterly irrelevant. Mahon made a big deal of this, arguing that Collins was simply too amazing a pilot to be ABLE to make the basic errors of airmanship that were being alleged. Well, history is full of amazing pilots who committed catastrophic errors. Jacob van Zanten wasn't renowned for taking off without clearance until he did so at Tenerife.

None of what went before matters. Doesn't matter how respected he was by his flight attendants, whether he used to be fanatical about his kids life jackets, whether he looked dashing in his pilot's uniform. All that matter is what he actually DID on that day. Was he capable of making simple errors? Absolutely. We all are.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 19:12
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Originally Posted by prospector
Yet still missed the fact they were on the wrong side of Beaufort Island, Beaufort Island was certainly visible, it shows up in Pax photo's.
And as I raised with you last week for that all he had a strip chart that is hardly the tool for visual navigation.
a.nd IF it was a photocopy (as some other charts were) the island outline is not visible on the copy.
Where were the topo maps supplied by the company? you didn’t reply to that question.

And I say again, they probably would have ploughed in all the same at 6000. Even the Chippendale report gives information to support this. The VMC descent to <2000 is a distraction.

The big issue here -that AP touched on - is the scope of legal responsibility and accountability. Courts and accident investigations operate in two different paradigms.

There is a much more recent example in the news of a court case finding the tasking agency guilty for allowing a situation where a pilot died on the ground. It was reported that both the defence of individual responsibility and that he had instructions to turn back if he thought the ground conditions dangerous were rejected by the judge. Very similar legal parallels, 40 years later.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 19:23
  #349 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by compressor stall
And I say again, they probably would have ploughed in all the same at 6000. Even the Chippendale report gives information to support this. The VMC descent to <2000 is a distraction.
Maybe, maybe not. It's impossible to extrapolate what would have happened at 6000' (which in any case is still 10,000' below MSA). But the descent to 1500' from 6000' is ABSOLUTELY not a "distraction". Terrain rises up from sea level. With every foot you drop below MSA, your chance of hitting terrain increases. 1500' was always going to be more dangerous than 6000'.

Last edited by PapaHotel6; 10th Dec 2019 at 19:36.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 19:27
  #350 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by PapaHotel6
Maybe, maybe not. It's impossible to extrapolate what would have happened at 6000' (which in any case is still 10,000' below MSA). But the descent to 1500' from 6000' is ABSOLUTELY not a "distraction". Terrain rises up from sea level. With every foot you drop below MSA, your chance of hitting terrain increases. 1500' was always going to be more dangerous that 6000'.
it’s a distraction from the arguments at play. On that route 6000 and 1500 were only going to end up in the same state, a couple of miles apart.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 21:00
  #351 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by compressor stall


it’s a distraction from the arguments at play. On that route 6000 and 1500 were only going to end up in the same state, a couple of miles apart.
If one was going to argue "if only they'd stayed at 6000', then the accident definitely would not have happened"; I agree this is incorrect (although it *might* not have happened - who knows what else might have been different if they had stayed at 6000'). But in the overall context of how they were flying, and their lack of situational awareness, the descent to 1500' as opposed to 6000' is indeed relevant.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 21:30
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Originally Posted by PapaHotel6
If one was going to argue "if only they'd stayed at 6000', then the accident definitely would not have happened"; I agree this is incorrect (although it *might* not have happened - who knows what else might have been different if they had stayed at 6000'). But in the overall context of how they were flying, and their lack of situational awareness, the descent to 1500' as opposed to 6000' is indeed relevant.
In the simulator with the same flight path and configuration it was possible to miss the mountain but only if the crew reacted instantly and correctly to the first GPWS warning. The GPWS went off four times and Collins pitched up a mere 5 degrees. The GPWS could have gone off all day, Collins was so confused and lost there was no way he was climbing out back to above MSA. The FE had been asking “where is Erebus?” and if they had the visibility required they should have been able to see it. If you can’t see it you’re either completely lost or the visibility isn’t what you think it is.

Chippendale stated only a competent crew acting as soon as the first GPWS warning sounded could have avoided impact. On the day Collins wasn’t. Mahon’s statement that the GPWS can basically be disregarded if you’re an experienced pilot is another example of how far out of his depth he was. The whole reason GPWS goes off and the whole reason we have it is because you’re not where you think you are.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 21:49
  #353 (permalink)  
 
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Assuming that you believe that Erebus is to your left and you have decided to bale out and your co-pilot, seated to your right, says it's clear to the right if you want to do a 180, which way do you turn?
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 21:50
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'And as I raised with you last week for that all he had a strip chart that is hardly the tool for visual navigation"

The point I was.making, was that he was reported to have studied all the available charts, .plus his expensive atlas, which surely would have depicted Beaufort Island. Surely if one wanted a VMC descent you would be looking for every visual clue to ascertain exact position, and as discussed previously, Beaufort Island is depicted on the strip chart.

None of the arguments presented so far can justify a descent when the weather conditions at McMurdo were well below those laid down for any descent, plus being advised that the tops of the local hills (Mountain) were above the cloud base. and the area was definitely no good for sightseeing flight. .

Last edited by prospector; 10th Dec 2019 at 21:52. Reason: Addition
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 22:00
  #355 (permalink)  
 
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Lets back up the truth truck to avoid some carefully crafted falsehoods before they become alternate reality.
Originally Posted by Pickuptruck

In the simulator with the same flight path and configuration it was possible to miss the mountain but only if the crew reacted instantly and correctly to the first GPWS warning.

"The flights in the simulator indicated that experienced pilots would not have avoided a collision and that the warning given was in accordance with the design specifications of the GPWS. With sufficient rehearsal it was possible to fly the aircraft away from the approaching slope when an extreme manoeuvre was initiated in response to the onset of the GPWS warning". Source - Chippendale report 1.16.4
(Sounds a bit like the legal case against Sullenberger).

The GPWS could have gone off all day, Collins was so confused and lost there was no way he was climbing out back to above MSA.
He had selected GoAround Power so was obviously going up. Source - CVR

if they had the visibility required they should have been able to see it. If you can’t see it you’re either completely lost or the visibility isn’t what you think it is.
"Whiteout conditions can exist within the normal VMC minima and even in the conditions defined by Air New Zealand as the minima for VMC descents to 6000 feet" Chippendale 2.17 And it can occur in 100km vis.

Chippendale stated only a competent crew acting as soon as the first GPWS warning sounded could have avoided impact.
He said nothing of the sort.
"The crew responded expeditiously in the circumstances to the GPWS warning. Simulator trials proved conclusively that with an unexpected warning such as this, it would have been impossible to avoid the accident with a normal pilot's response allowing reasonable identification and reaction times to the GPWS warning." - Chippendale P78
-------------------------------

Prospector
None of the arguments presented so far can justify a descent when the weather conditions at McMurdo were well below those laid down for any descent
I am not condoning his actions going to 1500. Never have. I'm just pointing out errors and holes in various posters' assumptions. This flight and the other flights should never have left the MSA even abiding by the company restrictions they had.

Last edited by compressor stall; 10th Dec 2019 at 22:12.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 22:05
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Did he turn right, or left?
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 22:07
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Originally Posted by compressor stall
I am not condoning his actions going to 1500. Never have. I'm just point out errors in various poster's assumptions. They and the other flights should never have left the MSA with the restrictions and experience they had.
........... and in particular for this flight, in the conditions they had.
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Old 10th Dec 2019, 22:56
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Originally Posted by ampan
Assuming that you believe that Erebus is to your left and you have decided to bale out and your co-pilot, seated to your right, says it's clear to the right if you want to do a 180, which way do you turn?
That they were even having that discussion (prior to, and at the time) should tell the trained mind something - namely that in those final moments their "spidey-sense" was telling them something was not right...

if they had the visibility required they should have been able to see it. If you can’t see it you’re either completely lost or the visibility isn’t what you think it is.
"Whiteout conditions can exist within the normal VMC minima and even in the conditions defined by Air New Zealand as the minima for VMC descents to 6000 feet" Chippendale 2.17 And it can occur in 100km vis.
All very factual, so why couldn't they see at 12500ft mountain that was only 27nm away - either left OR right? Surely thats not a response to the above quote Compressor? It's certainly no excuse....

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Old 11th Dec 2019, 00:24
  #359 (permalink)  
 
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" "Couldn't have picked a worse airline boss""

What a stupid misinformed statement to make, how many flights had been successfully completed to the ice before a captain thought he knew better than everybody who laid down all the requirements for a successful flight to the ice could be totally ignored, designed own descent procedure knowing that the weather at Mcmurdo was well below that required for a successful sight seeing flight and it is the bosses fault??
Quite an accurate summation of the boss, and the competence of the management he had beneath him. Most of those successful flights broke SOP's, the authority knew about it, the airline knew about it, and neither did anything to remedy the situation. They even used the fact that they didn't comply with SOP's as advertising material, all of NZ knew the standards being used re altitude applying via the papers and TV. That the flights were being run by a bunch of amateurs is signified by planning the flights directly over the top of Erebus. A point Chippendale should have asked, why didn't they plan via the RNC route? Discussion was had in briefing about descent below 6,000, so it's a bit odd saying 6,000 was a limit. Everything was all downhill from there.
All very factual, so why couldn't they see at 12500ft mountain that was only 27nm away
Compressor Stall has extensive experience flying in Antarctica, both jet and smaller aircraft used for commuting about the ice, so any thing he has to say you can take as gospel. Posters commenting, such as the quote, don't seem to understand the whiteout phenomena. As I've commented before, I sat in the cockpit of a 747 as we climbed from 16,000 through to on top of a overcast layer at 20,000, below the overcast the vis was unlimited, right around the world, VMC, yet you could see nothing but white in any direction. It's one of those things you have to experience to believe. I liken it to the reverse of a pitch black night, vis may be unlimited but you can't see anything. To see something you need contrast.

Last edited by megan; 11th Dec 2019 at 00:36.
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Old 11th Dec 2019, 00:33
  #360 (permalink)  
 
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Did Collins have visual meteorological conditions at 2000-1500 feet?
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