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After thirty years, Air New Zealand needs to apologise to the families of the pilots of flight TE 901 who were wrongly blamed for the Mt Erebus crash which claimed the lives of 257 passengers and crew.
This Saturday (28 November) will mark the thirtieth anniversary since the crash.
A Royal Commission of Enquiry in 1980, led by Justice Mahon found that "organisational failure" was to blame for the crash. Justice Mahon also said that in his opinion, Air New Zealand had deliberately set out to put the blame on 'pilot error'.
At the time, Air New Zealand undermined what became known as the 'Mahon Report' and its findings have only recently been formally acknowledged.
Thirty years later, the families of the pilots have never received an apology from Air New Zealand, who not only failed to stand by their own pilots, but actively sought to pass the blame onto the pilots, despite evidence which clearly showed they were not to blame.
Here is what the Mahon Report says:
"In my opinion..the single dominant and effective cause of the disaster was the mistake made by those airline officials who programmed the aircraft to fly directly at Mt Erebus and omitted to tell the aircrew. That mistake is directly attributable, not so much to the persons who made it, but to the incompetent administrative airline procedures which made the mistake possible.
In my opinion, neither Captain Collins nor First Officer Cassin nor the flight engineers made any error which contributed to the disaster, and were not responsible for its occurrence."
"It is my hope, and the hope of many New Zealanders, that this injustice will be set right on Saturday, and the families of the pilots of flight TE901 will hear an apology from Air New Zealand," Jim Anderton said.
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Comments
Jim Anderton just like
Jim Anderton just like Justice Mahon did chooses to disregard all principles of airmanship that applied to this flight.
At the time of impact the aircraft was flying under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) as authorised by the McMurdo Control Centre. Flight TE901 had specifically requested that it be allowed to operate under Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) meaning that the aircraft crew were entirely responsible for their own navigation and terrain clearance. That was a major error given the conditions but it was the only way that they were allowed to descend below the Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA)which was required under Instrument Flight Rules. To be operating VFR and still be reliant on Inertial Navigation Systems for estimating position was very bad practice.
If they had not descended below the MDA even with the INS waypoint programming error they would have cleared Mt Erebus. The Chief Air Accident Inspector, Ron Chippendale was perfectly correct in his report where he judged the accident to be the result of pilot error. If he was not correct in this case then surely all the other decisions he made before and after where pilot error was found to be the cause of an incident should be re investigated as well. This flight was no different in its operational requirements than any other flight operation.
Unfortunately, hard though it may be for the crew members families no apology should be made by Air New Zealand regarding the actions of the flight crew. If there had been merit in this action the Airline Pilots Association would have been demanding it long before now. They know it is not justified.
The only criticism I have of ANZ company operations is that they knew that aircraft were routinely descending below the MDA in Antarctic airspace in contravention of company guidelines and IFR operating procedures. They not only allowed it to continue but may have encouraged it to ensure a memorable customer sightseeing experience. That in itself does not exempt the crew from responsibility for what happened.
Despite what Justice Mahon said, the evidence clearly indicated the crew were to blame.
The pilots of flight TE 901
The pilots of flight TE 901 were apparently sent to the Antarctic with no training of Antarctic flight, and no realistic knowledge of whiteout conditions. It is therefore a little unfair to criticise them for failing to recognise weather phenomenon that was quite foreign to them, and not a normal part of their regular duties.