Prospector: This whole 30 year long saga might not have occurred had it not been for the involvement of the "legal people".

Question: What was the 1970s procedure after passing a waypoint? Was it to check the next programmed waypoint against the flightplan, or against the chart - or both?

ampan,
Making "assumptions" was just as bad in 1970's as it is now.

Your suggestion as to the naming of the memorial is to me the only thing of any value out of this thread. We know it will never happen, but that does not reduce the thought behind the suggestion.

This is where Gordon Vette ruins his own argument. His whole career was based on huge legs across the Pacific in a DC8, with nothing to guide him except for a couple of NDBs, the stars, and the navigator seated behind him.

ampan & prospector, why don't the two of you just email each other. The audience has heard it all before. All parties, pro and con, have their beliefs and never the twain shall meet.

Here...here!!

Now now Prospector, be nice. I can't decide if you are a "has been" or a "never was", the point I was trying to make is that you have had your say, this thread is going nowhere and the only person that cares anything for your ponderous diatribe seems to be ampan, so why don't you take Brian's advice:zzz: BTW. I kept reading this thread because I was hoping something interesting would emerge. I don't think I'll bother anymore:ugh:

Perhaps so, but maybe some of the younger generation will have cause to look a little deeper than what NZALPA feeds them.

slackie,
Hear, hear, I believe would be the words you meant to say.

Brian Abraham,

"I do not think that there is a single poster on here that believe the crew to be entirely blameless". as posted by compressor stall earlier, is a view obviously not shared by all, but maybe a few more now.

I would be very happy to bury the whole issue.

But is was NZALPA that dug it up, again.

Here's a question for Gordon Vette: If you had been in command of TE901, would the aircraft had collided with Mount Erebus at 1500 feet?

This statement shows how stupid this subject has become - a stated previously - just email each other!!

DK

Fine, as long as I get the last word: A bad case of pilot error.

Hear, Hear.

I don't think so boys!

Good try though. They were in the long chain of human error, granted. But to lay the blame at their feet exclusively is wrong. Perhaps because you two live in the industrial wasteland after crapping on your colleagues in the past makes you feel better about trying to discredit NZALPA and 3 of its members who perished 30 years ago.

"But to lay the blame at their feet exclusively is wrong."

Granted, but who is doing that? All I am arguing is that they were not blameless as has been quoted on this thread by many.

" live in the industrial wasteland after crapping on your colleagues"

Really, from whence do you get that sort of information from?? Remember it was the president of NZALPA that took it upon himself to publicly state state that all pilots were in agreement with Justice Mahons findings, That is patently garbage, I have quoted statements from Aviators with many thousands of hours of aviating who do not agree with those findings. Why do you lot not do a bit of research instead of slavishly following the dictates of the disciples of Mahon????.

To me, an interesting, absorbing thread. I was 15 at the time of this crash and are only now just forming my opinions on it.

To start with, my belief was that the fault was 90% by the pilots and 10% by the airline, but the more I read about it, the more that ratio changed.

At the moment, the company is somewhere around the 80% (at fault) mark.

prospector, I would like to thank you for the effort you have put into this argument. I appreciate it and believe you are making a positive contribution to air safety.

Your argument seems to be based solely on that descent SOP.

But, there are times when SOPs are not really SOPs. I will go into this a little more in my next post, but for now, be aware that SOPs can be:

1. Wrong (erroneously worded);
2. In direct contradiction to some other SOP;
3. Invalid (no longer applicable and awaiting a forthcoming amendment to remove it from the manuals);

Time prevents me from posting more right now, but I would like your opinion on the degree of certainty of position that was held by the crew in the minutes leading up to the crash.

Thanks for your concern prospector, I don't. I have done the research. If you read my last post again you will see that I have conceded that the crew were in the chain of error. Why do you dogmatically accept Ron's report as flawless? I think, like everything in this world, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Ampan,
Gordon Vette flew the DC10 and the 747-200, I flew them with him so get your facts right.

Ron Chippendale's job was to determine the cause of the accident, he did that, obviously, if the aircraft had not descended when it did it would not have impacted Erebus.

Justice Mahons brief was to determine why they went down when they did, and he did, and opened the can of worms that he did.

But there was much more to the can of worms he opened, and ALPA had a lot to do with that, they were the ones that insisted that these were perk flights to be distributed among senior pilots.

" Air New Zealand and NZALPA went to some lengths to ensure that their senior pilots and members were seen as professionals who knew it all and did not therefore need to seek advice from elsewhere, such as the RNZAF,USAF.USN or the Division." This from a very experienced AntArctic operator, as quoted earlier in the thread.

I have been criticised for offering an opinion after not having been down to the ice.

This crew had not been down to the ice, which was why the requirements for descent were so explicitly spelt out. They had no briefing about white out, so we are told, but any person of high intelligence such as these people obviously were would no doubt have heard of this peculiarity of operating in this environment. Yet they did what they did and with the results of which we are still all disagreeing about.

It is good to see some are now conceding that the crew were in the chain of error. My argument has always been against the finding that the crew were blameless.

prospector,

What fault ratio would you assign between the crew and airline?

For me, the ratio is now 70% to the airline and 30% fault to the pilots. This ratio has moved a little since my last post as I have now read the CVR transcript.

My purpose for reading that was to ascertain how much uncertainty there was on the flight deck as to their position. From reading the transcript, it can be seen there was significant uncertainty and apprehension.

At no time did anybody on the flight deck actually lay eyes on Mt Erebus. That would have been a disconcerting and niggling thought in the back of all of their minds as they completed that final orbit and reengaged the NAV track.

At one point, about 3 minutes before impact, the flight engineer asks "where's Erebus in relation to us at the moment?". The responses he gets over the next 15 seconds seem to indicate that nobody is sure where it is.

Finally, the flight engineer says "I'm just thinking of any high ground in the area, that's all".

I was 10 when it happened, and really had no idea about the Erebus crash until I saw a doco with original footage from the enquiry (that is now, thanks to the miracle of the internet, on youtube). I don't pretend to know any of the answers, but there was something fishy going on at ANZ with ring binders and staff stand-downs etc

Changez le disque
 

'Changez le disque, putain con de merde'.

ampan - I can't let this waffle pass by - it's one thing to be ignorant, it another altogether to advertise it, you and that other blinkered, vindictive muppet should knock it off; and another thing, it's a good idea to know what you're talking about before writing the patronising crap in your previous comment.

The reason all accident cases are heard in the USA on behalf of plaintiffs looking for damages/compensation is because there are no max' limits to the payouts in the US judiciary. It has nothing to do with the airplanes state of manufacture or state of occurrence as determined by ICAO Annex 13, and the stated case of the airbus accident has already started litigation in the US looking for damages-it's standard practice - there are US legal companies, US based that specialise in this, and they arrive at accident sites about 10 minutes after the emergency vehicles - everywhere in the world.

And, sad as it is, if the ANZ family members from the 320 accident off the French coast last year want to seek damages, it will be in a US court, for the above mentioned reasons.

I am extremely tempted to run through all of you previous posts on this Erebus subject and pick out every misquote, quote out context, repetition, maligning statements and deliberate 'liguistic slight of hand' that you have employed to show how biased your point of view has been...and don't mention 'educating people' as a motive, as that's plainly an extension of your excuse to carry on regardless of the facts.

Arrêt maintenant mec. Je suis fatigué d'écouter votre bateau des imbéciles