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Erebus TE901 29 years On
By Anthony Finlay
The second Post to my article on Erebus TE901 As it is now the 28th of November in New Zealand and since I posted this story on the Erebus disaster I have been asked by some readers of this article where they could find a reliable source on a true account of what actually happened.
Well I remember people at the time being very mean for example; They made threatening phone calls to the wife of Jim Collins the Captain of TE901 saying he was to blame, him and his crew, for goodness sake as if she wasn't going through enough.
Ok I can recommend Impact Erebus written by Captain Gordon vette and his account, Gordon a Former Air New Zealand Check and Training Captain, Gordon Vette's conviction is that the official accident investigation report was as misleading as the whiteout conditions prevailing in Lewis Bay on 28 November 1979 ultimately led to this meticulously researched and referenced book. His first-hand knowledge of Captain Jim Collins, and his equally experienced and professional crew aboard TE901 that day, plus his own experience crewing an earlier Antarctic sightseeing flight, prompted his "insider's" reappraisal of the events leading to the disaster. In essence, Vette believed that a sequence of systemic failures in the airline's administrative and operational areas led to the changed destination coordinates for McMurdo the night before the accident flight, culminating in the fateful omission to advise this to his colleagues. Vette mounts a convincing, and exhaustively substantiated (and copiously illustrated) case for Captain Collins and his crew operating the flight in accordance with the well-founded expectations derived from the earlier route briefing they had received. His own research into whiteout - a phenomenon well understood by professional Antarctic military and civilian pilots, but appreciated (if that) as more of a mere "intellectual concept" by those unfamiliar with the sub-polar latitudes of the world - is applied in this book to his familiar world of the airline pilot. He has tested these theories, exemplified them by experience, and recounted them in great detail in this fascinating book. Trigonometric reconstruction of cloud, light and weather conditions, applied to analysis of sight and viewing angles (according to passengers' photographs recovered from the wreck) showed that critical visual references would have been missed, mistaken or misinterpreted by the crew at key points in their otherwise proper and safe handling of the aircraft. Particularly compelling are the illustrations - which underscored Vette's expert testimony and submission to the Mahon Royal Commission - showing that, in the prevailing conditions, the few visual cues available to Collins and his crew (and the experienced Antarctic commentators on the flight) served only to reinforce their belief that they were over the flat sea ice of McMurdo Sound ... safely to the west of the high ground of Ross Island. The commission, headed by High Court Judge Peter Mahon, was appointed to look into the circumstances surrounding the disaster. Judge Mahon’s report, released in 1981, reached a different conclusion. It found that the state-owned airline was primarily to blame in changing the flight plan without telling the crew, with the result that the plane flew towards Mt Erebus instead of down McMurdo Sound. The report stirred up further controversy, particularly in its condemnation of Air New Zealand. Mahon asserted that the airline had intentionally misled the inquiry through an ‘orchestrated litany of lies’.
Anyone with an interest in the Erebus crash a quarter of a century ago - not to mention an intellectual curiosity into the workings of perception and the human mind on an airliner flight deck - is strongly advised to read and obtain this book, "Impact Erebus"
This tribute is also for Garth Varcoe who was the father of OAE's (old antarctic explorers) and a good friend, he more or less built Scott Base and knew it inside out, but never said he knew all about Antarctica. Garth Varcoe, 48, and Terry Newport, 31, died in a helicopter accident, 40km from Scott Base on October 13 in 1992. Mr Varcoe, a technician, was on his 37th visit to Antarctica while Mr Newport was on his first visit as summer carpenter. Mr Varcoe was active in conserving human history in Antarctica and created the original memorial cross for the crash of Flight TE 901 on the lower slopes of Mount Erebus. An Air Zealand DC-10 from Auckland struck the side of Mt Erebus in Antarctica killing all 257 people aboard on November 28, 1979.
This intel first appeared on: http://www.kiwi-i.com
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My Brother this is why I wrote the story
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This intel was contributed by Peter
Peter
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May, 2012
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