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Former concorde captain speaks out on erebus
Dear Tidbinbilla . . . .. . I do regret that you have again to assess whether there is any point in allowing further debate here on Erebus. It seems it will not lie down. Probably never will. The blue touch paper has been ignited again in the NZ press. Paul Holmes, Peter Mahon, Jim Collins et al have been attacked by one Captain Derek Ellis, once a commander on Concorde, no less. Hence the floodgates of bias and opinion are ratcheted wide once more.
Quote: The call by Paul Holmes and Peter Dunne for exoneration of the pilots of the Air New Zealand DC10 aircraft which crashed into Mt Erebus is not appropriate. It is the prime duty of an airline captain to deliver his passengers safely to their destination. Captain Jim Collins failed in this duty. I say this as a professional airline pilot with no connection to any person affected by the accident, which probably makes mine unique among the opinions expressed on this tragedy. We all have absolute sympathy for the relatives of those tragically killed in the Erebus accident. There is no similar sympathy on the part of Peter Dunne and Paul Holmes for those Air New Zealand personnel, and their families, unfairly and incorrectly blamed by the late Peter Mahon for the DC10 accident on Mt Erebus. Peter Mahon's allegation that they had lied under oath when giving evidence was successfully appealed by Judicial Review to the New Zealand Court of Appeal. This caused the resignation of Peter Mahon as a judge. His subsequent appeal to the Privy Council supported the finding of the New Zealand Court of Appeal. Responsibility for the Erebus tragedy must remain with Captain Collins, as found by the official accident investigation. This finding is still valid. Unquote These extracts are from the recent New Zealand Herald article by Derek Ellis, a retired British Airways captain living in New Zealand. It strikes me that despite Ellis's undoubted competency and experience as an airline pilot, he is another to join the band waggon of those many who have prejudged the causes of this accident. Perhaps, behind the scenes, the media saw an opportunity to hit back at Paul Holmes, consequently calling upon a man such as Ellis to wade in with the old claymore, delivering blow after blow to Collins at the same time. Whether or not this theory holds water, the fact remains that Ellis has out of hand condemned Collins, most regrettably receiving in this attack, wide media coverage under the banner of his expert status. Hence the public yet again are inflamed to believe not only that there were, and possibly still are, maverick airline pilots on the loose, but moreover that Collins, in the case of the Erebus tragedy, must bear the entire blame. This is manifestly absurd. To get to the causal truths is no simple task. It requires much study of the huge file that has amassed since the first enquiry. Yet the partial, inadequate, biased and uninformed execration of Collins and Mahon goes on and on. (Madame Defarge knitting by the guillotine is not a totally unapposite image.) Where Ellis gratuitously states that . .. . . "it is the prime duty of an airline captain to deliver his passengers safely to their destination. Captain Jim Collins failed in this duty" . . .. many will be those who themselves, through their professional lives, know the truth of this injunction, in their water, but who will wince to hear this absolute given trotted out by Ellis with the glib rider that Jim Collins in effect stuffed up. Had forgotten this creed. One he earnestly held high every day of his working life. Not good enough Captain Ellis. Please study every aspect of this most complex accident before you again pass summary judgement. |
He sounds like the archtypical arrogant BA Captain who simply because he was privileged enough to fly Concorde, thinks he knows it all. He probably never made an error in his life, let alone got caught out as a result of other errors in the system, such was the perfection of the BA machine and perhaps the RAF (if he came from that into civil aviation). The Brits NEVER make mistakes....
Before re-igniting this from the safety of his armchair, he needs to study James Reason. The Captain of the Titanic was far more culpable than Capt Collins, who probably had never experienced white-out conditions. But even with prior experience of fog and icebergs, the Titanic Captain's poor seamanship can be partially explained (if not excused, and as a sailor I am not inclined to excuse him) by his belief that his ship was unsinkable, that icebergs normally would not be so far south, so the risk was acceptable, and that the Company's reputation to complete Atlantic crossings on schedule justified the (perceived) small risk etc. Chuck in the apparent failure of the radio operator to relay the latest on iceberg sightings and it's classic James Reason stuff. Ditto Erebus. |
Unfortunately, Ellis is right. Jim Collins DID stuff up... but his was by no means the ONLY stuff-up. This we should all have figured out by now.
I remember Erebus - and the subsequent fallout - very clearly. I don't think that Jim Collins was a "maverick airline pilot", however he was part of an organisation that was arrogant in the extreme - not unlike British Airways at the time, which was the very model of an arrogant, self-serving organisation, that was effectively a law unto itself for many years. Whilst there were mitigating factors, the sad truth is that Jim Collins failed to take the correct action when faced with a loss of visibility and in the face of uncertainty regarding his position. He was undoubtedly under commercial pressure, but that doesn't excuse pressing on when you can't clearly see where you are going - one of the fundamental principles of VFR flight that all student pilots learn very early on in their training. So Ellis is right when he says "it is the prime duty of an airline captain to deliver his passengers safely to their destination. Captain Jim Collins failed in this duty", but he clearly isn't seeing the big picture. As for Paul Holmes, he is a sensationalist know-nothing who is so in love with himself that he thinks he can comment sensibly on the subject. He can't (and hasn't). |
Horsesh#t
Where Ellis gratuitously states that . .. . ."it is the prime duty of an airline captain to deliver his passengers safely to their destination. Captain Jim Collins failed in this duty" |
Jim Collins failed to take the correct action when faced with a loss of visibility
Long time since I have read the story but .. was it not a case of being in severe clear but not being able to perceive the mountain ahead due to the higher overcast reflections and effective whiteout conditions ? |
The white stuff
Long time since I have read the story but .. was it not a case of being in severe clear but not being able to perceive the mountain ahead due to the higher overcast reflections and effective whiteout conditions ? Correct. This accident was a catalyst for 'whiteout' studies as one of the confusing and difficult things to understand at the time was why Capt Collins didn't simply see the mountain in front of him and take evasive action earlier. The phenomenom is much better understood now than it was then. It is still hard to describe 'whiteout' to somebody who doesn''t understand it's nature or has ever experienced it, but there are some very good Air Force examples on record to back this condition. Sadly ANZ and of course the parasitic government and spin doctors of the day tried to throw the accident back on to Capt Collins and they tried to make out that the last line of defence - Him not taking evasive action contributed to the disaster. Bollocks!! However I am going to stop at that as the loop is about to start cycling again. |
It's amazing this story gets dragged up time & time again.
It's obvious that the end result was human error,always has been & always will be when man & machine are involved.We can't change that fact we can't bring back those who departed this world on that faithful day anymore than we can the many that went to their graves at the bottom of the Atlantic 100 years ago yesterday (14/15th) so I see little point in trying to apportion blame to anyone side of the debate. Collins didn't get out of bed that morning to take his plane into the side of the mountain it was an error pure & simple! We are ALL capable of doing what Collins did! Have we learnt anything from this? ........yeah we have & that's to see/hear what some humans will do to show that mankind hasn't proceeded any further than the cave!:ugh: Wmk2 |
There are only two things we know for certain about an accident. Firstly there is always more than one 'contributory factor'. Secondly there is always human error somewhere in the system.
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was it not a case of being in severe clear but not being able to perceive the mountain ahead due to the higher overcast reflections and effective whiteout conditions ? The point remains that, unless you can positively identify what you are flying towards, be that snow, ice, water or a volcano, you should do the right thing and climb immediately to MSA. Airmanship 101. |
Great theory, except when you're not expecting to see anything there and don't.
Which raises the obvious point that should you be there in the first place. |
Yeah but you SHOULD be expecting to see something if you are navigating visually (which they were attempting to do). Are you seriously suggesting that it's a good idea to fly a DC10 around below MSA, with high ground in the vicinity, without visual reference? Particularly as the whole point of the exercise was to see stuff.
I do tend to think that it was an accident borne of the arrogance of Air NZ at the time, and that Jim Collins was to a large extent an unwitting victim, however the basic rules of airmanship still apply, and having the judgement and determination to apply those rules appropriately is pretty much the only reason that airline pilots get paid the big bucks. In this case, Capt Collins was relying on the INS putting him where he expected to be, and descending without visual reference on that basis. Not his fault that the track had been changed without his knowledge... BUT... my guess is that he wasn't entirely happy with what he was doing. |
Are you seriously suggesting that it's a good idea to fly a DC10 around below MSA, with high ground in the vicinity, without visual reference? |
"......and again, around and around we go!"
Lock it up for goodness sake. |
and descending without visual reference A couple of quotes from Chippendale, There was no explanation of the horizon and surface definition terms in the operators’ route qualification or pre-flight dispatch planning, and only a passing reference to whiteout conditions. 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 6,000 feet. For readers, take anything compressor stall has to say re Antarctic ops as gospel. You can take it to the bank so to speak. Lock it up for goodness sake We'll have to leave it to the Mods to adjudicate. For me, Ellis just shows how little he knows about accident causation. |
Dear whiskers -
1. you do not have to open the thread if you feel that way 2. this is one of history's most intriguing, complex and in some key areas, still not entirely resolved accidents. 3. until an expert, definitive account of the accident is written there will always be grounds for study and review. (And probably thereafter , as well.) If you have a deep abiding interest in a subject you will always want to read and study what new light might be brought to bear. Hence, for example, the proliferation of biographies on persons of perennial significance. (Still, makes you think how many fresh slants can authors come up with when they get stuck into the entrails of Shaw or Orwell, Voltaire or Robespierre, Freud or Jung.) |
A sticking point that many have trouble with. There is no factual information anywhere that they were not in anything but VMC conditions. Having encountered this phenomenon myself while flying in the Alps, I still think that if you do not have POSITIVE visual reference, you have no business being below MSA. I agree with Compressor Stall and his line 2... ;) |
as I recall from the reports at the time ..
.. one of the salient findings related to (a) ANZ not having much in the way of corporate knowledge of Antarctic operations yet .. (b) they could have asked the USN NZ base folk for some guidance ? A follow on problem is having knowledge and experience sufficient to be able to identify conditions conducive to whiteout. |
Ellis sounds like the archtypical arrogant BA Captain who simply because he was privileged enough to fly Concorde, thinks he knows it all. If you could do a bit of research before quoting such garbage you will no doubt have discovered that when he read the Mahon report he was gratified that it was not pilot error. However, he states that after reading Gordon Vette's " Impact Erebus" his belief in the cause of the accident shifted more to agreeing with Ron Chippendale. As Captain Ellis is still alive, unlike Ron Chippendale, as Poor Gnomes waited years to happen before he could post his garbage on the abilities of our Chief Aircraft Accident Inspector, one should be circumspect before posting material that could be classed as libel. A sticking point that many have trouble with. There is no factual information anywhere that they were not in anything but VMC conditions. |
Mods please lock prospector out of this conversation. He, ampan and Ornis have demonstrated time and time again that they have no interest in anyones view point but their own. They only accept that it was all Captain Collins fault. We only need look at the language already being used to discredit posters - gumbashers garbage and Poor Gnomes.
Captain Ellis is demonstrably an experienced aviator, but his level of knowledge of this particular accident may very well be minimal, and what arctic knowledge does he have, by way of experience or study? |
Mods,
Once again Brian Abraham has called for the thread to be locked. Rather than answer a direct factual question, he whaffles on about holes in cheese. The descent requirements for this flight have been stated many times, they were printed in black and white, the descent procedure was practiced in the simulator, there was a copy of these descent instructions found in the cockpit in the wreckage, there can be no dispute that the crew were aware of these requirements, and they complied with none of them. The AINs was not cleared for Nav below MSA, these are all fact, not apologist theory. Moderators, no doubt you will note that only people who disagree with Brian Abrahams posts are the one he calls to be locked out of this debate, how is it he can be so certain his theory, and that is all it is, is the correct one??? Why does he not call for people who make statements that impugn the reputations of highly qualified, far more qualified than he, statements on this thread to be banned????? |
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