I think the pages of the ring binder had been shredded under Morrie Davis instructions. I think that man was highly criminal in his actions after the crash.
Ex 757 / 767 captain here. It seems so strange that Air NZ procedures at the time didn't require a "gross error check" based on raw nav data. VOR/DME if available, or OMEGA or at least inertial, if nothing else was available. Next, we would always make a latitude / longitude plot on our chart 10 minutes after crossing each nav waypoint. I presume the meticulous crosschecks and double checks were in response to crashes like flight 901 + other less fatal incidents. At Pan Am & TWA, the managers were real ball busters about doing those extra nav checks. They would check for pencil marks and compass pokes on the paper charts...
I don’t believe there was much in terms of navigational aids in that part of the world at the time. As a former RAAF avionics technician who maintained navigation systems the C-130H aircraft were fitted with dual (for redundancy) INS units when flying to the Antarctic base.
I’m not a pilot but being that far off and not being aware of location when there was time to identify the issue seems to me to be not how a pilot should have a plane at any point after it leaves the ground. I can’t see how this can’t be anything other than the most basic job and I presume there would have been the option of charts for reference and it was an otherwise clear day with some Geo points for reference in advance. Apart from the tech nav error, it sounds like there were procedural problems for remote area flying. Ie added checks rather than letting the computer do it.
The late Peter Mahon was a good and fair man. His family deserve an apology. The person who changed the navigation coordinates who is well known, should face manslaughter charges. He is the person who caused the crash. He failed to look at a chart to check what he sent the aircraft to do.
You forget the Muldoon factor and the fact that the Government was a majority shareholder in Air Nz. If the Police prosecuted anyone the insurance companies could have seen tort and liability. I'd say the police were probably stood over but you could also say that the pilots had proceeded below cloud in a very dangerous manner, (diving into a hole in cloud to get under it is something you do only if you are going to run out of fuel - either you can fly IFR or you can't .) they lost situational awareness and that they were not monitoring their real position effectively . They were also below the min safe altitude that the flight plan called for in that terminal maneuver zone. Under those circumstances could the Air nz nav man be prosecuted successfully ? Probably not.
How would you like to be flying an aircraft that some stupid person had changed the flight path of the day before and not bothered to tell you. The insurance companies were there to pay out in the event of the company making a mistake. The issue of criminal liability is for the courts to decide, not politicians. A jury should decide if or not he is guilty. In the end the government should pay and has paid over and over as the matter is still not yet resolved. While we have police not looking after property properly and putting cartridge cases in peoples gardens and shooting to kill people who are suicidal and who run at them with guns without being tested by the courts we have a very unsafe country.
@@jamesparlane9289 I think you will find in this really big policies there might be an egregious error clause so that the payout is diminished and Air NZ has to make up the difference if they are found guilty by a class action of relatives of the dead. Say defective fuel was supplied and the a/c crashed. Air NZ bought the fuel in good faith. THe relative sue. Insurance pays. However if NZ could be shown to have done shoddy maintenance leading to a fatality then the small print of the policy comes into play. This is akin to a motor insurance company refusing to pay because the driver had an illegal blood alcohol level.
Yes Muldoon was a nasty prick. I can't believe a small majority voted for him and his Bunch of pirates. He even looked evil. It shows you what a sick country this was and still is. It is nice that the youth of this country never knew piggy Muldoon.
I have a hunch that in 1974 ACC took away the right to sue for personal injury. This happened in 79. This airline should not be in business. It has been bailed out several times by governments and it goes on to Bully small operators out of business.
19 minutes in: Pages removed out of sensitivity for the Collins family? He may as well have said the pilot was having an extramarital affair. And wrote about it in his log book? Ha!
I never really dug any deeper than "Experience Antarctica from a airliner" and then doing a buzz job of a mountain. I know very little but there were few navigational aids, no surprise that the weather and conditions would be crappy. Then there is a unmovable mountain some 12000 + feet tall hidden in all that white clouds and snow. No flight plan I receive as captain is going to temp me to descend below the MVA. Even if the coordinates are wrong, I am not flying IFR into the side of a mountain. Its not even a approach but a freakin tourist sight seeing tour buzzing a mountain. This truly insane idea that enough coughed up money to make it happen and a crew to do it. VFR at a 16000+ altitude maybe but sticking your nose into dense white clouds kinda maybe knowing your location with a 12000ft mountain somewhere nearby is crazy.
I'm sure pilot is not responsible but I'm failing to understand why he felt comfortable flying nearby a mountain below its altitude with bad weather. I know people paid lots of bucks for seeing stuff but sorry priority is making back alive.
JIMJAMSC to quote from your post, "....sticking your nose into dense white clouds kinda maybe knowing your location with a 12000ft mountain somewhere nearby....." (unquote.) Visual illusions caused by polar light became a focus of the Mahon enquiry. Yet over 40 years on, armchair 'experts' like you STILL cling to the farce that Capt. Collins flew into "dense white clouds." Crap. Long before the 901 disaster, sector whiteout had been well understood by US pilots operating in the area. No USAF pilot could command Antarctic flights until cleared by a check captain with polar experience. But Air NZ failed to brief its crews about the insidious true nature of whiteout. For God's sake STUDY it properly! Hint -- whiteout is NOT bloody clouds.
@@frpineda "but I'm failing to understand why he felt comfortable flying nearby a mountain below its altitude with bad weather. " ....because it was accepted practice in previous 13 flights, encouraged by his employers, and also undertaken with informed assistance from US McMurdo flight control who had told him there was clear air at target altitude below the cloud cover.
A very informative programme as it brought out new information, such as the pilot's ring binder (flight notes) being interfered with. I was very surprised that this could happen as the site of any plane crash should be treated as a crime scene with all evidence carefully noted and preserved. Not to respect this rule was a serious error.
his flight bag was found to be empty at the crash site but paperwork could be seen out of sight in a deep crevace - oh yeah? it was a personal copy of handwritten notes that he had at his home that were 'found'. they had been stolen from his home whilst his wife had gone out - without her permission. what was brought to the court room was only part of his stolen personal notes moreover. his wife knew of the notes because she was a pilot too and they had looked at and discussed the flight details. she found his personal paperwork missing a couple of days later. someone wanted those sight seeing flights stopped for some reason.
So, I want to know why there was no subpoena with the U.S. Antartica base employees who suggested the alternative flight path in the first place? And why the NZ PM refused this? I do believe there was a big cover up to this story which had nothing to do with pilot error. The full story has not been disclosed. We do know however, that the U.S. were not happy with the NZ sight seeing tours.This little doco unfortunately, has omitted too much of the facts that we do know to this date.
bingo! i'd never heard of this accident until today and ya just know as soon as you find that the 'mericans were involved that the truth is out of kilter. it wouldn't get a lot of news time in the uk i suppose because you have to limit the number of people asking questions!
Thats total BULLSHIT. WTF? Thats the most idiotic thing to say. Blame it on the Americans? It was YOUR AIRLINE EXECUTIVES FAULT. They fuc$ed up, period. They should have been sued and shutdown. Are you watching the same videos as me? It was a HUGE coverup.
Agreed. That was the first thing that came to mind when I heard "Plane crash" "Erebus" and "McMurdo base" in one sentence. They where not happy with tourists in that area at all. It's so obvious what happened, it's sickening to the bones.
Coordinates are EVERYTHING in Navigation.. Wasn't surprised that their 'Nav' department chief admitted to something by then at least a year old... What a set up for disaster!! They were 'paid' to compute and plot and they hid the error!
Did that Administration really think that they wouldn't be caught? That was criminal. All those people died and they did not have to. Heads should have rolled from Air New Zealand Executives, but the only ones that did were the people on that plane. They should have been sued and disbanded.
I got to know Ray Goldring with the MSC and as a trainee teacher at the Christchurch School of Education we were on a winter overnight in the Craigie Burn Range and I was with Ray alone, cooking for him, and we got talking. I told him what I knew about Erebus and then he told me his role in the recovery ... just chatting. I then bought up the book, Collin's book. He said. I was there, I saw it, we/I found the book. It was intact, pages and all. I said wow, wow! I said, I know what that book is and I know what it meant, that is something.
I live in America & this New Zealander company acted like a typical American company with no honor.. I'm very surprised. I thought we had the monopoly in dishonesty.
Not all American airline corporations are deliberately negligent and dishonest like this. There are African, Middle Eastern and Far East airlines who make American airline entities look like saints.
And what American Companies are you talking about pal? We are talking about Air New Zealand and a huge coverup. Pretty convienant and arrogant to think New Zealand is squeaky clean which they are not. Neither is the EU.
The black ring binder stolen from the pilots house was in the custody of the New Zealand police when the pages were in it. The police produced the book without pages. The pages must have been removed by the police. They stole the pages. The officer who stole them could easily be found as the chain of evidence is always recorded by the police. That person will be a senior police officer now.
Their chef navigator did not understand the concept of altitude. He had no clue that mountains are pointy things that rise up above everything else. The flat earth society could have him as their patron.
Mr Parlane.... The ring binder was found at the crash scene - NOT the pilot's home! The pages were removed after it was recovered at the crash scene and "before" it was presented as "evidence" at the Commission of Enquiry. Please get your facts right.
@@Parker6432 The ring binder (with pages) was located and placed into a sealed evidence bag. The bag was then placed at a temporary "evidence locker" at the crash site, after which all recovered evidence would eventually be taken to Auckland (?) and cataloged according to NZ police procedure. NZ police have no dog in this fight. They're reacting in a normal procedure to an abnormal situation. Apologies for the long post, but who signed into the evidence room from Air NZ? Professional courtesy tells me a NZ LEO allowed the evidence to be seen/touched by a rep from Air NZ and someone unsealed the bag to get to the pages. They now have an idea what is being held until it's release to Air NZ (as Air NZ property). Was a chain of custody preserved and who had possession at what time before the binder was presented to the Commission? I understand I may be thumping a dead horse, but those are my questions. Thank you for posting the video.
From I discerned from this video and from my own knowledge, the NZ government - in particular ‘Piggy’ Muldoon, and Air NZ left a lot to desired to be desired in how they responded to this tragedy! On the balance of probabilities they were complicit in not doing enough and worse, did not follow an appropriate process of investigating an ‘aircraft accident’. You can fool all of the people some of the time and fool some of the people all of the time… fortunately, there were people who were willing to speak up and out to come to the most logical description of what truly happened. RIP Ito the victims, and to those people who were prepared and willing to speak up and speak out and no longer with us.
And let me tell you for the 48 years of MY life I have never met ANYONE that believes that this tragedy was pilot error! NEVER! As kiwis we ALL KNOW it was a seedy disgusting cover-up!
Whilst the waypoint change and subsequent cover-up are unconscionable - surely it was just a bad idea to be sending passenger flights into that part of the world to begin with? I mean, even at the best of times the weather conditions which surround Ross Island and the Barrier are the worst which can be found anywhere on earth. Even during the months of maximum daylight you can go from perfect visibility and nary a breath of wind to hurricane conditions within the space of a few hours. It's bad enough for the pilots who traverse the "Himalayan Hump" but by comparison that region of Antarctica is truly terrifying and requires aviators not just with nerves of steel but exceptional skill and all backed up with navigational data and safety systems which just weren't present wayback. Not sure why "whiteout" conditions are considered to be merely a possibility. In that neck of the woods I'd say they'd be a damned certainty.
I agree that with hindsight the Antarctic sightseeing flights by ANZ were not a good idea. But pioneers make mistakes and take 2 steps forward. NZ is full of pioneers. Climbing up Everest is “nota good idea” for the average person. But who will criticise Ed Hillary? Another pioneer who took passengers on sightseeing trips 17 years before Erebus to show those passengers “The Ice” ie the Glaciers and snowfields of the Southern Alps - was Brian Chadwick in the tiny DH90 Dragonfly on 12th Feb 1962. He took one step too far and went missing completely. The search was the largest in NZ aviation history. Look it up on findlostaircraft.co.nz. Gavin Grimmer’s labour of love ZK-AFB. I was on a flight a few days earlier in Chadwicks other aircraft DH89 ZK-BCP. Part of the cine film of that flight has been posted on TH-cam in the hope it will encourage more searching even after 60 years as it is so important to NZ history and flight safety TODAY! Too many aircraft have gone missing in NZ. Some of the pilots involved in the search for Chadwick became ANZ pilots and accident investigators helping Chippendale with the Erebus saga. It is all linked with the Dragonfly at the top of this pyramid.
@@robinfautley8698 Yes. But it's one thing for individuals to make such journeys. They know the risks from the outset and are prepared to take them. It's quite another to be taking *passengers* who have no conception of the dangers which lurk in and around the Antarctic region.
@@deaddropholiday I agree and I repeat that I was one of Chadwicks passengers earlier. The trip where he went missing also had passengers. The excitement of those trips was part of the pioneering. Google Lizzie Oakes and her grandmothers story in erebusengravedonourhearts. She was excited to be able to explore Antarctica but paid with her life due to errors by ANZ. These are exceptional journeys that went wrong for various reasons. Of course we would not want to go back to the time when a man with a red flag preceded the horseless carriage!
In Norway there is Svalbard Airport which is at a similar altitude in fact 1 degree closer to the North Pole than McMurdo is to the South Pole. They operate in White out conditions too. SAS has been operating commercial flights into there for years as well as Military flights. The captain simply was not aware that the route was changed in the INS because he wasn’t told. . He was ex Air Force so had had excellent training .
Therefore, still fresh in the mind of many-a New Zealander, something so simple as still being within the British Commonwealth, as Queen's Counsel leading this whole thing, under a Presidential system, this would've been covered up like so many a famous flight of the US.
The video has been put together very well and Mark Vette must be one of the most knowledgeable persons who has a grasp of the facts re Erebus still alive. The main thread through all these aircraft accidents is the gathering of the evidence and facts by the Chief Accident Inspector and his team. The problem the Chief Accident Inspector in this case - Ron Chippendale (and I have spelled it this way rather than Chippindale still a conundrum) - He was accompanied much of the time by the ANZ chief pilot Ian Gemmell. That man had a vested interest in making sure “Blame the Pilots” was the answer. It absolved the company and Civil Aviation Department of negligence and hence massive insurance payouts. The problem was that Chippendale made 5 basic mistakes. The change in coordinates from 164 to 166 - did influence Collins so that he was not given the safe track down McMurdo Sound. The MSA of 16,000 and 6,000 feet was not absolutely to be followed if VFR applied. ( Compare this with the MSA obeyed by the Kaimai crash DC3 in 1963 which Chips had ignored). The crew not certain of their position - so VFR was not applicable - despite all the evidence that they clearly WERE certain of their position albeit wrong. Radar - Chips was so completely wrong in that the Bendix radar would not have shown up the mountain as Antarctica was “dry” and Bendix radar depended on moisture. Collins was not briefed about The Sector whiteout. Gordon Vette’s work on visual phenomena subsequent to Erebus was not quick enough to prevent G-BEON’s crash on the Isles of Scilly in 1983. The Chips transcripts of the CVR tapes - he adapted the transcripts to fit his theories so totally different to virtually everyone else who had access including William Tench CAI in the UK at the time. Then to opine the change in a flight plan coordinate number without advising the pilots DID NOT AFFECT THE PILOTS - that was idiotic. But Chippendale (or Chippindale) made a massive mistake with the review of the Bay of Plenty crash (ZK-BWA in 1961) when metal fatigue was clearly to blame as illustrated with 24 subsequent crashes of Aero Commanders. Chips still would not exonerate the pilot Alf Bartlett. Chippendale was the chief BLAME THE PILOTS a champion.
The American NTSB always assigns the phrase "probable cause" which is to say that no investigation can always be 100%. In fact some accident reports had amendments issued subsequent to publications. As technology progresses additional causal factors may become known. As in the case of your Aero Commander analogy, in 1961 metallurgy was not as precise as it is today and accepted investigative techniques did not encompass the probability of metal fatigue in a relatively new airplane. We are not living in utopia.
Glueball I completely agree that the words probable cause are appropriate in most cases. However if one looked at the specifics of the original 1961 accident report issued in 1962, the opinion of pilot error should have clearly been overturned. If you have read the details of both the 1962 and the 1984 review by Chippendale, I would hope you would not be unhappy to accept that Bartlett should have been exonerated by Chippendale. The failure of the wing and detachment was observed by another well known pilot in 1961 - Roy Turner - but without the metal fatigue knowledge subsequently obtained, the original 1962 report was not overturned by Chippendale. Thanks for your other observations and note your vast experience. I appreciate the time taken to explain your viewpoint. Likewise Mickey Mouse debate, is that not a bit harsh when the combination of errors and omissions caused initially the loss of 257 lives. Had ANZ been completely honest and open with Chippendale in the very first place and then not use a shredder, the lessons to be learned from everyone’s mistakes - including the errors of judgement by the flight crew - would have the desired consequences for aviation history and improvement of systems management. Do you have any comments about Chippendales radar comments, CVR amendments etc. it appears to many that Chippendale seemed to have opinions based on errors of fact. Again thanks for your input.
@@robinfautley8698 - As a pilot I have an aversion of blaming a pilot for a crash and I had put myself in this captain's seat and imagined what I would have done on a first flight to McMurdo with 2 F/Os and 2 F/Es who themselves hadn't been there. Because Mt. Erebus was obscured by clouds I would have stayed at MSA (Minimum Safe/Sector) altitude until positive radar contact with McMurdo and opted for a radar vectored approach. As a 1st timer I wouldn't dive through a hole in the overcast, drop down to 1.500 feet and cruise at 260 Kts in proximity of a mountain I couldn't see. It was distressing to read some of the exclamations on the CVR transcript: Where's Erebus in relation to us a the moment. Left, about 20 or 25 miles. Yep, yep. I'm just thinking of any high ground in the area, that's all. I think it'll be left. Yes, I reckon about here. Yes ... no, no, I don't really know. That's the edge. Yes, OK. Probably see further anyway. It's not too bad. I reckon Bird's through here and Ross Island there. Erebus should be there. Actually, these conditions don't look very good at all, do they? No they don't. That looks like the edge of Ross Island there.
I don't like this. Have you got anything from him? No We're 26 miles north. We'll have to climb out of this. You can see Ross Island? Fine. You're clear to turn right. There's no high ground if you do a one eighty. No ... negative ---- Sorry, but this captain had failed his Line Check.
@@robinfautley8698 - Don't agree with Chippindale's assessment of being able to see snow covered Erebus on civilian aircraft radar in mapping/contour mode. Dry snow cannot be reliably detected with radar in any mode. Even heavy, wet snow can often be difficult to detect and identify in weather mode.
Is it possible that someone, or some individuals, had some sort of grudge against Captain Collins, and possibly his flight crew, and wanted to sabotage his career? That might explain the suddenly empty Collins three-ring pocket binder, or the unsolicited visit to his co-pilot's home, where flight documents were retrieved without his wife/family's conscent
Zickermacity - not a personal grudge - it was all about money. Millions of dollars so much that Air New Zealand could have been bankrupted and also the NZCAA sued by passengers estates especially in the US. Two pilots - Arthur Cooper and Peter Rhodes were told that it was a much bigger matter by Morrie Davis. The pilot error claim as per Chippendale report would have left only $42,000 per passenger compensation. Mahon’s report - unlimited. So blame the pilots - pilot error - and get rid of ANY evidence to the contrary like the information in the ring binder and all the pilots notes like those removed from Greg Cassins home. Cassins widow was a pilot herself and knew exactly how damaging her husbands papers were to the airlines claim of pilot error. There are still some people who have been taken in by the pilot error story without knowing the complete background to the true facts and continue to quote the Chippendale version - 55 made up changes - CVR transcripts. For full details go to website - Erebus.co.nz.
@@robinfautley8698 But it seems like navigation intentionally gave Collins coordinates that would send his flight straight into the side of Erebus. Or at the very least, presented those coordinates as the 'correct' ones. That's the impression I feel
@@Zickcermacity You are right but as the “correct” route was so different to the 9th Nov 1979 briefing as confirmed by Simpson and ALL his flight crew, ANZ should have told The Collins Crew of this Correction.
@@robinfautley8698 And not just by mistake. Another key clue is that this crash happened with a cockpit crew that had never done the Antarctic run before. I have personally been the receiver of such treatment on the job, not with loss of life or limb obviously, but being set up systemtically by jealous or vindictive co-workers to make mistakes that would ultimately lead to my firing. Thankfully in my instance, the only "casualties" were several laptops that "went missing" on my watch. It was all a setup to get rid of me! Two weeks later, my final paycheck arrived - twice as much, because I guess upper management felt sorry about the whole mess, and OK'd a severance of sorts
@@robinfautley8698 So Dr. Waugh was flying on a De Havilland DH89 that crashed into the Shotover River in Queenstown, NZ in the 1950s. Not even a Wikipedia article written about the incident. My searches for "Brian Waugh" and "Shotover River" on TH-cam have proven fruitless. Because nobody died in the wreck, it merited only the book you mentioned.
The description of navigation coords cock up is typical of modern TV journalism. What really happened is - The original flight path for the first flights had the TE flights flying directly at Erebus but above it at about 16 000 ft. That gives clearance on 3794 m height of Erebus. - As long as you don't violate the safety minima for flying in the area, which Air NZ pilots did regularly in clear weather. 2. During a computer system change over the coordinates for a way point were mis-typed (It seems very inefficient that the data had to be physically retypted but with the new system, the formating may have been so different that it was regarded as safer to do it this way. This could have been 1972 - 3 time approximately) . This took the flight down the Ross Sea which in a way was safer - this was the US Military flight route. (It's not a lot safer if you put Air NZ flights into a US flight path and the US flight controllers think all Air NZ flights come in higher and from another direction.) Air NZ flight briefing materials reflected this McMurdo Sound flight route but they seem to have been reverse engineered from described flights. 3. An Air nz captain contacted the Nav section after a flight and stated the Nav system did not put him where he expected to be when he took the plane off auto pilot for a fly around (presumably based on visual references to ground ref. points like capes). 4. The Nav section went back on this basis and checked the position of McMurdo base and found it was off by a couple of nautical miles over the US coordinate for that landmark, so the nav program for the aircraft was changed (This is typed into the nav computer by the Navigator or copilot to ensure that that person has total responsibility for the data in the Nav computer (but not the calculations that created it)) . HOWEVER it appears that the OLD nav program , the one sending the aircraft towards Erebus was changed and the data provided to Collins was printed from that. Moving the AC by a few km one side or the other is not going to change the fact that there is still a mountain in the way. Bear in mind that pilot and co pilot still thought that if they let down through cloud as long as the Inertial nav system was operating , they would be flying down the Ross sea and ground level was more or less sea level until they left the area of sea ice. What this cock up implies is that Air NZ kept old copies of nav routings on file either physically or electronically and the idea of a Superseded stamp had not occurred to them - just unbelievable. Final point - it was Air NZ policy at the time that the INS was not to be trusted for let down at the end of a flight for landing. The position of the AC had to be checked against physical landmarks in good weather and in poor visibility the AC's position had to be read back from ground radar. That is what the rules said.
Another thing of course was that when the plane tried to use radio to contact the US base they, the US base, should have noticed that the plane was flying dangerously close to the mountain and sent them an emergency message to avoid it. But just at that moment something mysterious happened at the base, and the tape recording of communications at the base was wiped. The suspicion, which can't be proved, is that the person who was supposed to be manning the radio at the base at that time had decided to leave his post and do something else just at the crucial moment, which was unauthorised, and in order to avoid embarrassment the people in charge decided to wipe the tape so that it couldn't be proved what had happened. Another point is that the pilot on the flight had never flown to this area before, and it seems a bit dangerous today to think that someone could do that without any prior training. Another thing: the guide on the plane might have noticed the various landmarks on either side of the plane when the plane was turning, but unfortunately it's thought that he was doing something else just at the crucial time when he might have noticed that some of the landmarks weren't in the right place. If he had noticed, he might have alerted the pilot to the fact that they might not be where they thought they were. So it's incredible how many different things had to go wrong for the crash to happen. There may have been as many as 10 different things taking place, or not taking place, for it to happen, and if just one of those 10 things had gone the other way so-to-speak the crash probably would have been averted. One of those things is simply if the weather had changed slightly and the white-out effect had not been present in the way that it was. Another is the fact that Air NZ decided to install new computers in 1978 which caused the data to need to be re-inputted, as you mentioned. If they hadn't updated their computers the accident might not have happened therefore, since it was that re-inputting of the data that caused the problem.
@@ajs41 Yet another conspiracy theory. HEre a re the facts. The US had no responsibility to guide civilian airliners in the area. 2. THe base did not know the TE 901 was "dangerously close to the mountain " as they had never seen them ONCE on radar. The told TE 901 this if you look at the transcripts. The offered LET DOWN >>>once TE was in range. At that point the pilot and FO of TE 901 should have been very concerned because according to where they should have been the would have been just coming into radar range. The business about the re input off data - Mahan decided was a Lie and I too believe it was a lie. What are the odds that Hewlett NOT ONLY made that mistake but was also there at 2 am in the morning before the flight to make another cock up. ?? He was clearly being made to fall on his sword by the management. I personally believe that Air Nz changed the flight path for the 78 year flights down the Ross sea but it was a very unofficial change as it was never ok'd with the Americans nor with Nz Civil aviation. This was in potential very dangerous as it had the potential for an Air Nz flight to fly up the ass of a much slower turboprop Starlifter flying for the USAF as they flew the Ross sea route as standard. The advantage of Ross sea of course was they could see Mc Base coming up a long way ahead on good weather. it also gave a better radar view off the a/c to the ground radar ie further out . I Believe Sometime in 79 the flight path was changed back to the NZ CAA approved over Erebus flight plan before any flight ever took off. That's why the previous captain in the summer of 79 noticed the 26 Nm discrepancy between where the INS put him and where he thought he should be when the ac flew through the last Waypoint. He too had been briefed on the down the Ross sea flight path, as had been Collins (otherwise why would he notice the flight discrepancy) - they had a combined briefing on the same morning. My take on it - Air NZ chose not to rebrief the later flight . because ANZ was operating like an enormous public service...Just all TOO hard. Additional concern - to call them in again would cost money. So for the cost of a briefing for the "over Erebus route " they killed two hundred and fifty odd people and destroyed a perfectly good aircraft. The business of the 2 Nm correction was all BS. THere was indeed a nominal error in survey positions but it was just a method of muddying the waters and did not need any practical correction . Hewlett should have been jailed for lying to the Royal commission. Ditto Morris Davis . Instead they all got gold watches and retirement packages to keep them shut up. Dirty dogs. Dirty Muldoon. BTW MUlgrew , who was the commentator had no legal status as to the navigation. He had no knowledge of aviation and lt turned out later he had no idea where they were. The Pilot flying had two basic sources of information - the FO who should have been plotting track over gnd, but could not as Air NZ gave him inadequate charts, and the INS which could not be treated as fully trustworthy under Air NZ internal rules. It was in fact ILLEGAL for him to listen to Mulgrew. P. Mulgrew really should not have been on the flight deck. That was a complete breakdown of flt deck discipline but was the way AirNz ran things. From your comments I can see you have limited understanding of the command complexity of the whole thing. Ditto the comment you made that ATC should have warned the aircraft about ground proximity. TE Fidler in NzL
There's more to it than that. Taking your points individually: 1) Mostly correct- the original flights for the first 2 "certification" flights (flown by Capts. Grundy and Gemmell) flew over the top of Erebus with a final destination waypoint of Williams Field. By the third flight, the final waypoint was shifted to the NDB just a few miles away (to allow for the cloudbreak procedure from 16,000 to 6,000 ft in IMC). 2) The computer system change over occurred in 1978, and yes- Mr. Hewitt mistyped the coordinates. However, he made not one, but two alleged mistakes- first, he started with the Williams Field coordinates (rather than the NDB), and then mistyped the legendary "6" instead of "4". And yes, at this same exact time (for reasons Air NZ claim were coincidence), flight charts (and a track and trace diagram) reflected a flight path change corresponding nearly perfectly to this new endpoint coordinates. These were given at the RCU briefings on all 1978 flights, and nearly every single pilot testimony demonstrated that their impression from the briefing was that they'd be flying down McMurdo Sound. Same with the 1979 flights leading up to 11/28/79. 3) During his RCU briefing in early Nov 1979 (incidentally, the same one that the fated flight crew attended), Capt. Simpson eyeballed the final waypoint roughly on a map, and estimated that the waypoint should be around ~6 nm from the TACAN (as Air NZ informed flight crews around this time that the NDB was not working, and they should use the TACAN instead...which, not having a directional component for civil airliners, meant that the IMC cloudbreak procedure couldn't be used). When he actually flew the flight, he overflew the waypoint and realized it was more like ~27 nm. He was so taken aback that he visually overflew the TACAN and recalibrated his AINS system (thinking that maybe there had been some crosstrack error), but it turned out, it was exactly accurate. So after landing, Capt. Simpson calls Capt R. Johnson (one of the briefing instructors) and tells him "hey, I was really taken aback by how much of a crosstrack distance there is- you maybe should tell pilots that it's 27 miles, so they don't waste time trying to recalibrate their AINS system." During the Royal Commission, Capt. R Johnson says something different (and changes his story several times, in fact), stating that Simpson told him that the final waypoint would be better suited at the TACAN. As an aside, it seems strange to me that a line pilot would tell his higher-up briefing officer to change a waypoint. In fact, Johnson's original internal Air NZ memo corroborated Simpson's account, but for unclear reasons, he changed his story to the one above during the Commission. 4) Capt. Johnson claims he called the Nav Department up and told them to change it to the TACAN. Nobody checked to see where the current waypoint was, mind you, they just changed it. The TACAN is extremely close (around 2 nm) from the NDB so no one thought to tell the subsequent pilots (this is per the Air NZ executive staff account). However, it's 27 miles away from the Dailey Islands waypoint (ie- the one that took planes over McMurdo Sound), and no pilots are informed of this. This flight plan update was supposed to go into effect on the flight BEFORE 11/28/79, and the Nav Staff write a manual note trying to expedite it's entry by manually typing it into the system instead of leaving it for the weekly computer updates which happen every Tuesday evening. However, this isn't done (a source of controversy during the Commission), and instead it gets updated normally the following Tuesday around midnight (11/27-28/79)- ie- just hours before the flight that crashed was due to leave. Meanwhile, in a move that Air NZ claimed was an unrelated mistake, the flight plan information sent to McMurdo ATC contained a change whereby, instead of displaying the final waypoint coordinates, it now just said "MCMURDO," leaving ATC unaware of the changed waypoints in the DC-10's flight computer. Finally, the policy of not using AINS for landing is irrelevant because these flights weren't landing at McMurdo! Moreover, the final portion of the fateful flight was flown in VMC, meaning that the flight crew were consistently monitoring for visual reference points outside, which, if you check the CVR transcript, was exactly what they were doing. That was the primary mode of navigation, and the fact that Collins locked in the NAV mode on the autopilot was secondary. If they HADN'T been looking for visual references and flying SOLELY on AINS, yes- that would be an egregious error. But it's not what happened.
It's highly suspicious to me that the Americans would not allow any interrogation of their ATC controllers or personnel. Would they have not seen the plane tracking into the mountain? Since Americans are behind almost every atrocity around the world / the secretive nature of Antarctica, I would like to know more about what was going on with them.
My opinion with hind sight is that it was a combination of bad decisions ie Allowing the flight to proceed at all given the dangers involved in the area and crew inexperience of such dangers! Wrong flight path details being issued! The crews failure to double check everything on chart and If in doubt including loss of radio contact (why are we getting no radio contact? ) climb the hell out, immediately not in 2 or 4 minutes, now!
So what are we to believe? - That because of a wrong Lat/Long coordinate, a typo, the jet had crashed into a mountain? Huh? Unfortunately, this supposedly experienced crew had categorically failed to cross check their computer flight plan's coordinates by plotting them on the area navigation chart. They had blindly entered the computer generated track into their Inertial Navigation System which had routed them directly across the mountain to McMurdo Station instead of west of Beaufort Island, west of Mt. Erebus across McMurdo Sound for an initial radar guided descent towards McMurdo Station. It was careless and reckless of the crew to have descended below the clouds in proximity to Mt. Erebus without first establishing and maintaining FULL VIEW of the 11,000 foot mountain. Obviously because of the haze and glare from the clouds, snow and sun the forward visibility at 2000 feet at 260 kts was insufficient for safe visual flight.
@Real Napster - Are you a pilot? The crew in the cockpit flew the jet, not the flight dispatcher, not the government bureaucrats - irrespective of changed flight plan coordinates or the governments attempted cover up of those changes. Would you drive your car into a ditch because of wrong directions?
You do know about white out phenomenon, right? And the fact that it was NOT incorporated in the definition of VMC flight rules? And that nearly every flight other than the first two in 1977 descended WELL below the minimum safe flight level? And that management obviously knew about it and did nothing? And that Air NZ never trained their pilots on true white out? And they ignored the recommendation that Antarctica flights should only be piloted by crew that’s previously been to Antarctica? And the fact that it NOBODY told them the coordinates had been switched (which, by the way, did not involve one mistake but at least 5 individual ones)? Look, if you wanna blame the pilots, go ahead. But there seems to be a discrepancy here between blame versus understanding the proximal reasons for the crash. Capts. Stimpson, Veddy, etc, unequivocally say that they could have just as easily fallen trap to this and crash due to the combination of: 1) True White Out, 2) changed coordinates without informing the pilot, 3) the bad luck of having the entrance to Lewis Bay appear visually nearly identical to McMurdo, through various optical illusions involving topography. Even Murray Davis admitted privately that the company was at least 60% to blame. And that’s saying something!
The only relevant fact is that Minimum Safe Altitude is 16,000 feet, they were at 1,500. This may be the dumbest idea in commercial aviation. This was always going to happen it was just a matter of time.
I watched a documentary on this accident just this morning. The airline company is guilty. 1 of the policeman that was sent to bring back the bodies found that book with its pages still inside. It's awful that these governments can cover up just about anything they feel is bad publicity for them. Disgraceful 😢
All the recovered items were photographed at the time of recovery weren’t they? There are photographs of watches and other personal effects!? And they were photographed AT ANTARCTICA! So where are the actual photograph negatives from the police!? Or a manifest of items recovered!
I doubt they would have photographed every page of books etc. although maybe they would if it happened again today. Police evidence also reportedly went missing from long term storage over the years, not at the time but years later.
I think the pages of the ring binder had been shredded under Morrie Davis instructions. I think that man was highly criminal in his actions after the crash.
Ex 757 / 767 captain here. It seems so strange that Air NZ procedures at the time didn't require a "gross error check" based on raw nav data. VOR/DME if available, or OMEGA or at least inertial, if nothing else was available. Next, we would always make a latitude / longitude plot on our chart 10 minutes after crossing each nav waypoint.
I presume the meticulous crosschecks and double checks were in response to crashes like flight 901 + other less fatal incidents.
At Pan Am & TWA, the managers were real ball busters about doing those extra nav checks. They would check for pencil marks and compass pokes on the paper charts...
I don’t believe there was much in terms of navigational aids in that part of the world at the time. As a former RAAF avionics technician who maintained navigation systems the C-130H aircraft were fitted with dual (for redundancy) INS units when flying to the Antarctic base.
I’m not a pilot but being that far off and not being aware of location when there was time to identify the issue seems to me to be not how a pilot should have a plane at any point after it leaves the ground. I can’t see how this can’t be anything other than the most basic job and I presume there would have been the option of charts for reference and it was an otherwise clear day with some Geo points for reference in advance. Apart from the tech nav error, it sounds like there were procedural problems for remote area flying. Ie added checks rather than letting the computer do it.
The late Peter Mahon was a good and fair man. His family deserve an apology. The person who changed the navigation coordinates who is well known, should face manslaughter charges. He is the person who caused the crash. He failed to look at a chart to check what he sent the aircraft to do.
You forget the Muldoon factor and the fact that the Government was a majority shareholder in Air Nz. If the Police prosecuted anyone the insurance companies could have seen tort and liability. I'd say the police were probably stood over but you could also say that the pilots had proceeded below cloud in a very dangerous manner, (diving into a hole in cloud to get under it is something you do only if you are going to run out of fuel - either you can fly IFR or you can't .) they lost situational awareness and that they were not monitoring their real position effectively . They were also below the min safe altitude that the flight plan called for in that terminal maneuver zone. Under those circumstances could the Air nz nav man be prosecuted successfully ? Probably not.
How would you like to be flying an aircraft that some stupid person had changed the flight path of the day before and not bothered to tell you. The insurance companies were there to pay out in the event of the company making a mistake. The issue of criminal liability is for the courts to decide, not politicians. A jury should decide if or not he is guilty. In the end the government should pay and has paid over and over as the matter is still not yet resolved. While we have police not looking after property properly and putting cartridge cases in peoples gardens and shooting to kill people who are suicidal and who run at them with guns without being tested by the courts we have a very unsafe country.
@@jamesparlane9289 I think you will find in this really big policies there might be an egregious error clause so that the payout is diminished and Air NZ has to make up the difference if they are found guilty by a class action of relatives of the dead. Say defective fuel was supplied and the a/c crashed. Air NZ bought the fuel in good faith. THe relative sue. Insurance pays. However if NZ could be shown to have done shoddy maintenance leading to a fatality then the small print of the policy comes into play. This is akin to a motor insurance company refusing to pay because the driver had an illegal blood alcohol level.
Yes Muldoon was a nasty prick. I can't believe a small majority voted for him and his Bunch of pirates. He even looked evil. It shows you what a sick country this was and still is. It is nice that the youth of this country never knew piggy Muldoon.
I have a hunch that in 1974 ACC took away the right to sue for personal injury. This happened in 79. This airline should not be in business. It has been bailed out several times by governments and it goes on to Bully small operators out of business.
- A fish begins to smell at the head first. But is always being cleaned from the tail up.- And that is what happened here. As simple as that.
19 minutes in: Pages removed out of sensitivity for the Collins family? He may as well have said the pilot was having an extramarital affair. And wrote about it in his log book? Ha!
I never really dug any deeper than "Experience Antarctica from a airliner" and then doing a buzz job of a mountain.
I know very little but there were few navigational aids, no surprise that the weather and conditions would be crappy. Then there is a unmovable mountain some 12000 + feet tall hidden in all that white clouds and snow. No flight plan I receive as captain is going to temp me to descend below the MVA. Even if the coordinates are wrong, I am not flying IFR into the side of a mountain. Its not even a approach but a freakin tourist sight seeing tour buzzing a mountain. This truly insane idea that enough coughed up money to make it happen and a crew to do it. VFR at a 16000+ altitude maybe but sticking your nose into dense white clouds kinda maybe knowing your location with a 12000ft mountain somewhere nearby is crazy.
IFR: I Found ROCKS!!!
I'm sure pilot is not responsible but I'm failing to understand why he felt comfortable flying nearby a mountain below its altitude with bad weather. I know people paid lots of bucks for seeing stuff but sorry priority is making back alive.
JIMJAMSC to quote from your post, "....sticking your nose into dense white clouds kinda maybe knowing your location with a 12000ft mountain somewhere nearby....." (unquote.) Visual illusions caused by polar light became a focus of the Mahon enquiry. Yet over 40 years on, armchair 'experts' like you STILL cling to the farce that Capt. Collins flew into "dense white clouds." Crap. Long before the 901 disaster, sector whiteout had been well understood by US pilots operating in the area. No USAF pilot could command Antarctic flights until cleared by a check captain with polar experience. But Air NZ failed to brief its crews about the insidious true nature of whiteout. For God's sake STUDY it properly! Hint -- whiteout is NOT bloody clouds.
@@frpineda "but I'm failing to understand why he felt comfortable flying nearby a mountain below its altitude with bad weather. "
....because it was accepted practice in previous 13 flights, encouraged by his employers, and also undertaken with informed assistance from US McMurdo flight control who had told him there was clear air at target altitude below the cloud cover.
Not familiar with this terrible tragedy. Thank you for sharing. New sub fm 🇨🇦 and looking forward to watching your other videos.
A very informative programme as it brought out new information, such as the pilot's ring binder (flight notes) being interfered with. I was very surprised that this could happen as the site of any plane crash should be treated as a crime scene with all evidence carefully noted and preserved. Not to respect this rule was a serious error.
Nijel H:
Or was it really an error?
Yes but it would have been easy for 1 person to stuff it in his pocket l. These guys were working in unimaginable conditions .
his flight bag was found to be empty at the crash site but paperwork could be seen out of sight in a deep crevace - oh yeah? it was a personal copy of handwritten notes that he had at his home that were 'found'. they had been stolen from his home whilst his wife had gone out - without her permission. what was brought to the court room was only part of his stolen personal notes moreover. his wife knew of the notes because she was a pilot too and they had looked at and discussed the flight details. she found his personal paperwork missing a couple of days later. someone wanted those sight seeing flights stopped for some reason.
@@MsVanorak Yes, and someone had something to hide by stealing them.
The more I look into these big name airline crashes, the more I get the feeling that nearly all of them where crimescenes.
So, I want to know why there was no subpoena with the U.S. Antartica base employees who suggested the alternative flight path in the first place? And why the NZ PM refused this? I do believe there was a big cover up to this story which had nothing to do with pilot error. The full story has not been disclosed. We do know however, that the U.S. were not happy with the NZ sight seeing tours.This little doco unfortunately, has omitted too much of the facts that we do know to this date.
@Giuliano Skywalker The only error they made was not checking the coordinates.
bingo! i'd never heard of this accident until today and ya just know as soon as you find that the 'mericans were involved that the truth is out of kilter. it wouldn't get a lot of news time in the uk i suppose because you have to limit the number of people asking questions!
Thats total BULLSHIT. WTF? Thats the most idiotic thing to say. Blame it on the Americans? It was YOUR AIRLINE EXECUTIVES FAULT. They fuc$ed up, period. They should have been sued and shutdown. Are you watching the same videos as me? It was a HUGE coverup.
Agreed.
That was the first thing that came to mind when I heard "Plane crash" "Erebus" and "McMurdo base" in one sentence.
They where not happy with tourists in that area at all.
It's so obvious what happened, it's sickening to the bones.
How could they subpoena them?
That's the problem with Antarctica.
It's not under the normal legal jurisdiction of New Zealand or any other country.
Coordinates are EVERYTHING in Navigation.. Wasn't surprised that their 'Nav' department chief admitted to something by then at least a year old... What a set up for disaster!! They were 'paid' to compute and plot and they hid the error!
Yes true, but the pilot is responsible for safe terrain clearance
Did that Administration really think that they wouldn't be caught? That was criminal. All those people died and they did not have to. Heads should have rolled from Air New Zealand Executives, but the only ones that did were the people on that plane. They should have been sued and disbanded.
I got to know Ray Goldring with the MSC and as a trainee teacher at the Christchurch School of Education we were on a winter overnight in the Craigie Burn Range and I was with Ray alone, cooking for him, and we got talking. I told him what I knew about Erebus and then he told me his role in the recovery ... just chatting. I then bought up the book, Collin's book. He said. I was there, I saw it, we/I found the book. It was intact, pages and all. I said wow, wow! I said, I know what that book is and I know what it meant, that is something.
I live in America & this New Zealander company acted like a typical American company with no honor.. I'm very surprised. I thought we had the monopoly in dishonesty.
Not all American airline corporations are deliberately negligent and dishonest like this.
There are African, Middle Eastern and Far East airlines who make American airline entities look like saints.
@@DrLuke49 Very, very true.
And what American Companies are you talking about pal? We are talking about Air New Zealand and a huge coverup. Pretty convienant and arrogant to think New Zealand is squeaky clean which they are not. Neither is the EU.
Integrity is a smug but dishonest image that we kiwis like to project to everyone, ourselves included. A bit like the myth of American Exceptionalism.
The black ring binder stolen from the pilots house was in the custody of the New Zealand police when the pages were in it. The police produced the book without pages. The pages must have been removed by the police. They stole the pages. The officer who stole them could easily be found as the chain of evidence is always recorded by the police. That person will be a senior police officer now.
Their chef navigator did not understand the concept of altitude. He had no clue that mountains are pointy things that rise up above everything else. The flat earth society could have him as their patron.
@@jamesparlane9289 concerning the missing pages the truth always comes out.
Not if dishonest people get rid of evidence. We have waited 40 years while dishonest people run this country.
Mr Parlane.... The ring binder was found at the crash scene - NOT the pilot's home! The pages were removed after it was recovered at the crash scene and "before" it was presented as "evidence" at the Commission of Enquiry. Please get your facts right.
@@Parker6432 The ring binder (with pages) was located and placed into a sealed evidence bag. The bag was then placed at a temporary "evidence locker" at the crash site, after which all recovered evidence would eventually be taken to Auckland (?) and cataloged according to NZ police procedure. NZ police have no dog in this fight. They're reacting in a normal procedure to an abnormal situation. Apologies for the long post, but who signed into the evidence room from Air NZ? Professional courtesy tells me a NZ LEO allowed the evidence to be seen/touched by a rep from Air NZ and someone unsealed the bag to get to the pages. They now have an idea what is being held until it's release to Air NZ (as Air NZ property). Was a chain of custody preserved and who had possession at what time before the binder was presented to the Commission? I understand I may be thumping a dead horse, but those are my questions. Thank you for posting the video.
From I discerned from this video and from my own knowledge, the NZ government - in particular ‘Piggy’ Muldoon, and Air NZ left a lot to desired to be desired in how they responded to this tragedy! On the balance of probabilities they were complicit in not doing enough and worse, did not follow an appropriate process of investigating an ‘aircraft accident’.
You can fool all of the people some of the time and fool some of the people all of the time… fortunately, there were people who were willing to speak up and out to come to the most logical description of what truly happened. RIP Ito the victims, and to those people who were prepared and willing to speak up and speak out and no longer with us.
Ty for sharing! Big like 👍
Programme is from 2003, 24 years after the crash.
Appalling move air nz
RIP🙏🏼🙏🏼
And let me tell you for the 48 years of MY life I have never met ANYONE that believes that this tragedy was pilot error! NEVER! As kiwis we ALL KNOW it was a seedy disgusting cover-up!
I'm a kiwi pilot and im certain it was pilot error
could you please elaborate on your certainty @@pirate3599
@@pirate3599
Agree !! 👍
I believe the map showing the crash site at count 4:14 is incorrect. The crash should be on the other side of Erabus and slightly to the right,
No. The crash site is to the left of Mt. Erebus when going southwards, as shown most clearly at 4:56
Whilst the waypoint change and subsequent cover-up are unconscionable - surely it was just a bad idea to be sending passenger flights into that part of the world to begin with? I mean, even at the best of times the weather conditions which surround Ross Island and the Barrier are the worst which can be found anywhere on earth. Even during the months of maximum daylight you can go from perfect visibility and nary a breath of wind to hurricane conditions within the space of a few hours. It's bad enough for the pilots who traverse the "Himalayan Hump" but by comparison that region of Antarctica is truly terrifying and requires aviators not just with nerves of steel but exceptional skill and all backed up with navigational data and safety systems which just weren't present wayback. Not sure why "whiteout" conditions are considered to be merely a possibility. In that neck of the woods I'd say they'd be a damned certainty.
I DON'T THINK SO.
I agree that with hindsight the Antarctic sightseeing flights by ANZ were not a good idea. But pioneers make mistakes and take 2 steps forward. NZ is full of pioneers. Climbing up Everest is “nota good idea” for the average person. But who will criticise Ed Hillary? Another pioneer who took passengers on sightseeing trips 17 years before Erebus to show those passengers “The Ice”
ie the Glaciers and snowfields of the Southern Alps - was Brian Chadwick in the tiny DH90 Dragonfly on 12th Feb 1962. He took one step too far and went missing completely. The search was the largest in NZ aviation history. Look it up on findlostaircraft.co.nz. Gavin Grimmer’s labour of love ZK-AFB. I was on a flight a few days earlier in Chadwicks other aircraft DH89 ZK-BCP. Part of the cine film of that flight has been posted on TH-cam in the hope it will encourage more searching even after 60 years as it is so important to NZ history and flight safety TODAY! Too many aircraft have gone missing in NZ. Some of the pilots involved in the search for Chadwick became ANZ pilots and accident investigators helping Chippendale with the Erebus saga. It is all linked with the Dragonfly at the top of this pyramid.
@@robinfautley8698 Yes. But it's one thing for individuals to make such journeys. They know the risks from the outset and are prepared to take them. It's quite another to be taking *passengers* who have no conception of the dangers which lurk in and around the Antarctic region.
@@deaddropholiday I agree and I repeat that I was one of Chadwicks passengers earlier. The trip where he went missing also had passengers. The excitement of those trips was part of the pioneering. Google Lizzie Oakes and her grandmothers story in erebusengravedonourhearts. She was excited to be able to explore Antarctica but paid with her life due to errors by ANZ. These are exceptional journeys that went wrong for various reasons. Of course we would not want to go back to the time when a man with a red flag preceded the horseless carriage!
In Norway there is Svalbard Airport which is at a similar altitude in fact 1 degree closer to the North Pole than McMurdo is to the South Pole. They operate in White out conditions too. SAS has been operating commercial flights into there for years as well as Military flights. The captain simply was not aware that the route was changed in the INS because he wasn’t told. . He was ex Air Force so had had excellent training .
God just pulled me here.
Therefore, still fresh in the mind of many-a New Zealander, something so simple as still being within the British Commonwealth, as Queen's Counsel leading this whole thing, under a Presidential system, this would've been covered up like so many a famous flight of the US.
@@MsVanorak Yes dear
We have Royal Commissions, they have Presidential Commissions like that on the Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Finding out about all this today
The video has been put together very well and Mark Vette must be one of the most knowledgeable persons who has a grasp of the facts re Erebus still alive. The main thread through all these aircraft accidents is the gathering of the evidence and facts by the Chief Accident Inspector and his team. The problem the Chief Accident Inspector in this case - Ron Chippendale (and I have spelled it this way rather than Chippindale still a conundrum) - He was accompanied much of the time by the ANZ chief pilot Ian Gemmell. That man had a vested interest in making sure “Blame the Pilots” was the answer. It absolved the company and Civil Aviation Department of negligence and hence massive insurance payouts. The problem was that Chippendale made 5 basic mistakes.
The change in coordinates from 164 to 166 - did influence Collins so that he was not given the safe track down McMurdo Sound. The MSA of 16,000 and 6,000 feet was not absolutely to be followed if VFR applied. ( Compare this with the MSA obeyed by the Kaimai crash DC3 in 1963 which Chips had ignored). The crew not certain of their position - so VFR was not applicable - despite all the evidence that they clearly WERE certain of their position albeit wrong. Radar - Chips was so completely wrong in that the Bendix radar would not have shown up the mountain as Antarctica was “dry” and Bendix radar depended on moisture. Collins was not briefed about The Sector whiteout. Gordon Vette’s work on visual phenomena subsequent to Erebus was not quick enough to prevent G-BEON’s crash on the Isles of Scilly in 1983.
The Chips transcripts of the CVR tapes - he adapted the transcripts to fit his theories so totally different to virtually everyone else who had access including William Tench CAI in the UK at the time. Then to opine the change in a flight plan coordinate number without advising the pilots DID NOT AFFECT THE PILOTS - that was idiotic. But Chippendale (or Chippindale) made a massive mistake with the review of the Bay of Plenty crash (ZK-BWA in 1961) when metal fatigue was clearly to blame as illustrated with 24 subsequent crashes of Aero Commanders. Chips still would not exonerate the pilot Alf Bartlett. Chippendale was the chief BLAME THE PILOTS a champion.
The American NTSB always assigns the phrase "probable cause" which is to say that no investigation can always be 100%. In fact some accident reports had amendments issued subsequent to publications. As technology progresses additional causal factors may become known. As in the case of your Aero Commander analogy, in 1961 metallurgy was not as precise as it is today and accepted investigative techniques did not encompass the probability of metal fatigue in a relatively new airplane. We are not living in utopia.
Glueball I completely agree that the words probable cause are appropriate in most cases. However if one looked at the specifics of the original 1961 accident report issued in 1962, the opinion of pilot error should have clearly been overturned. If you have read the details of both the 1962 and the 1984 review by Chippendale, I would hope you would not be unhappy to accept that Bartlett should have been exonerated by Chippendale. The failure of the wing and detachment was observed by another well known pilot in 1961 - Roy Turner - but without the metal fatigue knowledge subsequently obtained, the original 1962 report was not overturned by Chippendale.
Thanks for your other observations and note your vast experience. I appreciate the time taken to explain your viewpoint. Likewise Mickey Mouse debate, is that not a bit harsh when the combination of errors and omissions caused initially the loss of 257 lives. Had ANZ been completely honest and open with Chippendale in the very first place and then not use a shredder, the lessons to be learned from everyone’s mistakes - including the errors of judgement by the flight crew - would have the desired consequences for aviation history and improvement of systems management. Do you have any comments about Chippendales radar comments, CVR amendments etc. it appears to many that Chippendale seemed to have opinions based on errors of fact. Again thanks for your input.
@@robinfautley8698 - As a pilot I have an aversion of blaming a pilot for a crash and I had put myself in this captain's seat and imagined what I would have done on a first flight to McMurdo with 2 F/Os and 2 F/Es who themselves hadn't been there.
Because Mt. Erebus was obscured by clouds I would have stayed at MSA (Minimum Safe/Sector) altitude until positive radar contact with McMurdo and opted for a radar vectored approach. As a 1st timer I wouldn't dive through a hole in the overcast, drop down to 1.500 feet and cruise at 260 Kts in proximity of a mountain I couldn't see.
It was distressing to read some of the exclamations on the CVR transcript:
Where's Erebus in relation to us a the moment.
Left, about 20 or 25 miles.
Yep, yep.
I'm just thinking of any high ground in the area, that's all.
I think it'll be left.
Yes, I reckon about here.
Yes ... no, no, I don't really know.
That's the edge.
Yes, OK. Probably see further anyway.
It's not too bad.
I reckon Bird's through here and Ross Island there.
Erebus should be there.
Actually, these conditions don't look very good at all, do they?
No they don't.
That looks like the edge of Ross Island there.
I don't like this.
Have you got anything from him?
No
We're 26 miles north. We'll have to climb out of this.
You can see Ross Island? Fine.
You're clear to turn right. There's no high ground if you do a one eighty.
No ... negative
---- Sorry, but this captain had failed his Line Check.
@@HPG747 can you confirm that in your opinion Chips comments that Collins should have seen Erebus on his radar?
@@robinfautley8698 - Don't agree with Chippindale's assessment of being able to see snow covered Erebus on civilian aircraft radar in mapping/contour mode. Dry snow cannot be reliably detected with radar in any mode. Even heavy, wet snow can often be difficult to detect and identify in weather mode.
because what can go wrong when you mix government and business?
22:02 no we don’t mate at all 👍
Is it possible that someone, or some individuals, had some sort of grudge against Captain Collins, and possibly his flight crew, and wanted to sabotage his career?
That might explain the suddenly empty Collins three-ring pocket binder, or the unsolicited visit to his co-pilot's home, where flight documents were retrieved without his wife/family's conscent
Zickermacity - not a personal grudge - it was all about money. Millions of dollars so much that Air New Zealand could have been bankrupted and also the NZCAA sued by passengers estates especially in the US. Two pilots - Arthur Cooper and Peter Rhodes were told that it was a much bigger matter by Morrie Davis. The pilot error claim as per Chippendale report would have left only $42,000 per passenger compensation. Mahon’s report - unlimited. So blame the pilots - pilot error - and get rid of ANY evidence to the contrary like the information in the ring binder and all the pilots notes like those removed from Greg Cassins home. Cassins widow was a pilot herself and knew exactly how damaging her husbands papers were to the airlines claim of pilot error. There are still some people who have been taken in by the pilot error story without knowing the complete background to the true facts and continue to quote the Chippendale version - 55 made up changes - CVR transcripts. For full details go to website - Erebus.co.nz.
@@robinfautley8698 But it seems like navigation intentionally gave Collins coordinates that would send his flight straight into the side of Erebus. Or at the very least, presented those coordinates as the 'correct' ones. That's the impression I feel
@@Zickcermacity You are right but as the “correct” route was so different to the 9th Nov 1979 briefing as confirmed by Simpson and ALL his flight crew, ANZ should have told The Collins Crew of this Correction.
@@robinfautley8698 And not just by mistake. Another key clue is that this crash happened with a cockpit crew that had never done the Antarctic run before.
I have personally been the receiver of such treatment on the job, not with loss of life or limb obviously, but being set up systemtically by jealous or vindictive co-workers to make mistakes that would ultimately lead to my firing. Thankfully in my instance, the only "casualties" were several laptops that "went missing" on my watch. It was all a setup to get rid of me!
Two weeks later, my final paycheck arrived - twice as much, because I guess upper management felt sorry about the whole mess, and OK'd a severance of sorts
@@robinfautley8698 So Dr. Waugh was flying on a De Havilland DH89 that crashed into the Shotover River in Queenstown, NZ in the 1950s. Not even a Wikipedia article written about the incident.
My searches for "Brian Waugh" and "Shotover River" on TH-cam have proven fruitless. Because nobody died in the wreck, it merited only the book you mentioned.
erubus the black night
The description of navigation coords cock up is typical of modern TV journalism. What really happened is -
The original flight path for the first flights had the TE flights flying directly at Erebus but above it at about 16 000 ft. That gives clearance on 3794 m height of Erebus. - As long as you don't violate the safety minima for flying in the area, which Air NZ pilots did regularly in clear weather.
2. During a computer system change over the coordinates for a way point were mis-typed (It seems very inefficient that the data had to be physically retypted but with the new system, the formating may have been so different that it was regarded as safer to do it this way. This could have been 1972 - 3 time approximately) . This took the flight down the Ross Sea which in a way was safer - this was the US Military flight route. (It's not a lot safer if you put Air NZ flights into a US flight path and the US flight controllers think all Air NZ flights come in higher and from another direction.) Air NZ flight briefing materials reflected this McMurdo Sound flight route but they seem to have been reverse engineered from described flights.
3. An Air nz captain contacted the Nav section after a flight and stated the Nav system did not put him where he expected to be when he took the plane off auto pilot for a fly around (presumably based on visual references to ground ref. points like capes).
4. The Nav section went back on this basis and checked the position of McMurdo base and found it was off by a couple of nautical miles over the US coordinate for that landmark, so the nav program for the aircraft was changed (This is typed into the nav computer by the Navigator or copilot to ensure that that person has total responsibility for the data in the Nav computer (but not the calculations that created it)) . HOWEVER it appears that the OLD nav program , the one sending the aircraft towards Erebus was changed and the data provided to Collins was printed from that. Moving the AC by a few km one side or the other is not going to change the fact that there is still a mountain in the way. Bear in mind that pilot and co pilot still thought that if they let down through cloud as long as the Inertial nav system was operating , they would be flying down the Ross sea and ground level was more or less sea level until they left the area of sea ice. What this cock up implies is that Air NZ kept old copies of nav routings on file either physically or electronically and the idea of a Superseded stamp had not occurred to them - just unbelievable. Final point - it was Air NZ policy at the time that the INS was not to be trusted for let down at the end of a flight for landing. The position of the AC had to be checked against physical landmarks in good weather and in poor visibility the AC's position had to be read back from ground radar. That is what the rules said.
Another thing of course was that when the plane tried to use radio to contact the US base they, the US base, should have noticed that the plane was flying dangerously close to the mountain and sent them an emergency message to avoid it. But just at that moment something mysterious happened at the base, and the tape recording of communications at the base was wiped. The suspicion, which can't be proved, is that the person who was supposed to be manning the radio at the base at that time had decided to leave his post and do something else just at the crucial moment, which was unauthorised, and in order to avoid embarrassment the people in charge decided to wipe the tape so that it couldn't be proved what had happened. Another point is that the pilot on the flight had never flown to this area before, and it seems a bit dangerous today to think that someone could do that without any prior training. Another thing: the guide on the plane might have noticed the various landmarks on either side of the plane when the plane was turning, but unfortunately it's thought that he was doing something else just at the crucial time when he might have noticed that some of the landmarks weren't in the right place. If he had noticed, he might have alerted the pilot to the fact that they might not be where they thought they were. So it's incredible how many different things had to go wrong for the crash to happen. There may have been as many as 10 different things taking place, or not taking place, for it to happen, and if just one of those 10 things had gone the other way so-to-speak the crash probably would have been averted. One of those things is simply if the weather had changed slightly and the white-out effect had not been present in the way that it was. Another is the fact that Air NZ decided to install new computers in 1978 which caused the data to need to be re-inputted, as you mentioned. If they hadn't updated their computers the accident might not have happened therefore, since it was that re-inputting of the data that caused the problem.
@@ajs41 Yet another conspiracy theory. HEre a re the facts. The US had no responsibility to guide civilian airliners in the area. 2. THe base did not know the TE 901 was "dangerously close to the mountain " as they had never seen them ONCE on radar. The told TE 901 this if you look at the transcripts. The offered LET DOWN >>>once TE was in range. At that point the pilot and FO of TE 901 should have been very concerned because according to where they should have been the would have been just coming into radar range.
The business about the re input off data - Mahan decided was a Lie and I too believe it was a lie. What are the odds that Hewlett NOT ONLY made that mistake but was also there at 2 am in the morning before the flight to make another cock up. ?? He was clearly being made to fall on his sword by the management.
I personally believe that Air Nz changed the flight path for the 78 year flights down the Ross sea but it was a very unofficial change as it was never ok'd with the Americans nor with Nz Civil aviation. This was in potential very dangerous as it had the potential for an Air Nz flight to fly up the ass of a much slower turboprop Starlifter flying for the USAF as they flew the Ross sea route as standard.
The advantage of Ross sea of course was they could see Mc Base coming up a long way ahead on good weather. it also gave a better radar view off the a/c to the ground radar ie further out .
I Believe Sometime in 79 the flight path was changed back to the NZ CAA approved over Erebus flight plan before any flight ever took off. That's why the previous captain in the summer of 79 noticed the 26 Nm discrepancy between where the INS put him and where he thought he should be when the ac flew through the last Waypoint. He too had been briefed on the down the Ross sea flight path, as had been Collins (otherwise why would he notice the flight discrepancy) - they had a combined briefing on the same morning.
My take on it - Air NZ chose not to rebrief the later flight . because ANZ was operating like an enormous public service...Just all TOO hard. Additional concern - to call them in again would cost money.
So for the cost of a briefing for the "over Erebus route " they killed two hundred and fifty odd people and destroyed a perfectly good aircraft.
The business of the 2 Nm correction was all BS. THere was indeed a nominal error in survey positions but it was just a method of muddying the waters and did not need any practical correction . Hewlett should have been jailed for lying to the Royal commission. Ditto Morris Davis . Instead they all got gold watches and retirement packages to keep them shut up. Dirty dogs. Dirty Muldoon.
BTW MUlgrew , who was the commentator had no legal status as to the navigation. He had no knowledge of aviation and lt turned out later he had no idea where they were. The Pilot flying had two basic sources of information - the FO who should have been plotting track over gnd, but could not as Air NZ gave him inadequate charts, and the INS which could not be treated as fully trustworthy under Air NZ internal rules.
It was in fact ILLEGAL for him to listen to Mulgrew.
P. Mulgrew really should not have been on the flight deck. That was a complete breakdown of flt deck discipline but was the way AirNz ran things.
From your comments I can see you have limited understanding of the command complexity of the whole thing. Ditto the comment you made that ATC should have warned the aircraft about ground proximity.
TE Fidler in NzL
There's more to it than that. Taking your points individually:
1) Mostly correct- the original flights for the first 2 "certification" flights (flown by Capts. Grundy and Gemmell) flew over the top of Erebus with a final destination waypoint of Williams Field. By the third flight, the final waypoint was shifted to the NDB just a few miles away (to allow for the cloudbreak procedure from 16,000 to 6,000 ft in IMC).
2) The computer system change over occurred in 1978, and yes- Mr. Hewitt mistyped the coordinates. However, he made not one, but two alleged mistakes- first, he started with the Williams Field coordinates (rather than the NDB), and then mistyped the legendary "6" instead of "4". And yes, at this same exact time (for reasons Air NZ claim were coincidence), flight charts (and a track and trace diagram) reflected a flight path change corresponding nearly perfectly to this new endpoint coordinates. These were given at the RCU briefings on all 1978 flights, and nearly every single pilot testimony demonstrated that their impression from the briefing was that they'd be flying down McMurdo Sound. Same with the 1979 flights leading up to 11/28/79.
3) During his RCU briefing in early Nov 1979 (incidentally, the same one that the fated flight crew attended), Capt. Simpson eyeballed the final waypoint roughly on a map, and estimated that the waypoint should be around ~6 nm from the TACAN (as Air NZ informed flight crews around this time that the NDB was not working, and they should use the TACAN instead...which, not having a directional component for civil airliners, meant that the IMC cloudbreak procedure couldn't be used). When he actually flew the flight, he overflew the waypoint and realized it was more like ~27 nm. He was so taken aback that he visually overflew the TACAN and recalibrated his AINS system (thinking that maybe there had been some crosstrack error), but it turned out, it was exactly accurate. So after landing, Capt. Simpson calls Capt R. Johnson (one of the briefing instructors) and tells him "hey, I was really taken aback by how much of a crosstrack distance there is- you maybe should tell pilots that it's 27 miles, so they don't waste time trying to recalibrate their AINS system."
During the Royal Commission, Capt. R Johnson says something different (and changes his story several times, in fact), stating that Simpson told him that the final waypoint would be better suited at the TACAN. As an aside, it seems strange to me that a line pilot would tell his higher-up briefing officer to change a waypoint. In fact, Johnson's original internal Air NZ memo corroborated Simpson's account, but for unclear reasons, he changed his story to the one above during the Commission.
4) Capt. Johnson claims he called the Nav Department up and told them to change it to the TACAN. Nobody checked to see where the current waypoint was, mind you, they just changed it. The TACAN is extremely close (around 2 nm) from the NDB so no one thought to tell the subsequent pilots (this is per the Air NZ executive staff account). However, it's 27 miles away from the Dailey Islands waypoint (ie- the one that took planes over McMurdo Sound), and no pilots are informed of this.
This flight plan update was supposed to go into effect on the flight BEFORE 11/28/79, and the Nav Staff write a manual note trying to expedite it's entry by manually typing it into the system instead of leaving it for the weekly computer updates which happen every Tuesday evening. However, this isn't done (a source of controversy during the Commission), and instead it gets updated normally the following Tuesday around midnight (11/27-28/79)- ie- just hours before the flight that crashed was due to leave.
Meanwhile, in a move that Air NZ claimed was an unrelated mistake, the flight plan information sent to McMurdo ATC contained a change whereby, instead of displaying the final waypoint coordinates, it now just said "MCMURDO," leaving ATC unaware of the changed waypoints in the DC-10's flight computer.
Finally, the policy of not using AINS for landing is irrelevant because these flights weren't landing at McMurdo! Moreover, the final portion of the fateful flight was flown in VMC, meaning that the flight crew were consistently monitoring for visual reference points outside, which, if you check the CVR transcript, was exactly what they were doing. That was the primary mode of navigation, and the fact that Collins locked in the NAV mode on the autopilot was secondary. If they HADN'T been looking for visual references and flying SOLELY on AINS, yes- that would be an egregious error. But it's not what happened.
🤔, could The Antarctic Treaty have something to do with this ?
It's highly suspicious to me that the Americans would not allow any interrogation of their ATC controllers or personnel. Would they have not seen the plane tracking into the mountain? Since Americans are behind almost every atrocity around the world / the secretive nature of Antarctica, I would like to know more about what was going on with them.
@@anneofgreengables1619lol you naïvely believe ATC always has full and accurate radar coverage of their areas, they do not
🎵🌌⏳
12:26 judge Mahon 🫡 👏 🙇 ❤
🌹27🌹
My opinion with hind sight is that it was a combination of bad decisions ie Allowing the flight to proceed at all given the dangers involved in the area and crew inexperience of such dangers!
Wrong flight path details being issued!
The crews failure to double check everything on chart and If in doubt including loss of radio contact (why are we getting no radio contact? ) climb the hell out, immediately not in 2 or 4 minutes, now!
WHERE IS THE PROOF THAT IS THE TRUE BINDER,,,HEARSAY...
So what are we to believe? - That because of a wrong Lat/Long coordinate, a typo, the jet had crashed into a mountain? Huh? Unfortunately, this supposedly experienced crew had categorically failed to cross check their computer flight plan's coordinates by plotting them on the area navigation chart. They had blindly entered the computer generated track into their Inertial Navigation System which had routed them directly across the mountain to McMurdo Station instead of west of Beaufort Island, west of Mt. Erebus across McMurdo Sound for an initial radar guided descent towards McMurdo Station. It was careless and reckless of the crew to have descended below the clouds in proximity to Mt. Erebus without first establishing and maintaining FULL VIEW of the 11,000 foot mountain. Obviously because of the haze and glare from the clouds, snow and sun the forward visibility at 2000 feet at 260 kts was insufficient for safe visual flight.
What's ur point???
@@bendover9411 - That it's crew error.
@Real Napster - Are you a pilot? The crew in the cockpit flew the jet, not the flight dispatcher, not the government bureaucrats - irrespective of changed flight plan coordinates or the governments attempted cover up of those changes. Would you drive your car into a ditch because of wrong directions?
You do know about white out phenomenon, right? And the fact that it was NOT incorporated in the definition of VMC flight rules? And that nearly every flight other than the first two in 1977 descended WELL below the minimum safe flight level? And that management obviously knew about it and did nothing? And that Air NZ never trained their pilots on true white out? And they ignored the recommendation that Antarctica flights should only be piloted by crew that’s previously been to Antarctica? And the fact that it NOBODY told them the coordinates had been switched (which, by the way, did not involve one mistake but at least 5 individual ones)?
Look, if you wanna blame the pilots, go ahead. But there seems to be a discrepancy here between blame versus understanding the proximal reasons for the crash. Capts. Stimpson, Veddy, etc, unequivocally say that they could have just as easily fallen trap to this and crash due to the combination of: 1) True White Out, 2) changed coordinates without informing the pilot, 3) the bad luck of having the entrance to Lewis Bay appear visually nearly identical to McMurdo, through various optical illusions involving topography.
Even Murray Davis admitted privately that the company was at least 60% to blame. And that’s saying something!
@@HPG747 I would if I couldn’t see it due to true white out conditions!
The lesson here is to sit in the rear of the plane! Why? I'v never heard of a airbus backing into a mountain.😮
where's my H
The only relevant fact is that Minimum Safe Altitude is 16,000 feet, they were at 1,500.
This may be the dumbest idea in commercial aviation.
This was always going to happen it was just a matter of time.
Did you listen obviously not
I watched a documentary on this accident just this morning. The airline company is guilty. 1 of the policeman that was sent to bring back the bodies found that book with its pages still inside. It's awful that these governments can cover up just about anything they feel is bad publicity for them. Disgraceful 😢
All the recovered items were photographed at the time of recovery weren’t they? There are photographs of watches and other personal effects!? And they were photographed AT ANTARCTICA! So where are the actual photograph negatives from the police!? Or a manifest of items recovered!
Good point. This is true.
I doubt they would have photographed every page of books etc. although maybe they would if it happened again today. Police evidence also reportedly went missing from long term storage over the years, not at the time but years later.