The Briefing Room

The cockpit transcript of the last few minutes of the flight indi-cates these guys had no idea where they were as they flew straight into the foothills of Mt Erebus. Everyone in the cockpit seemed to be throwing in their penny’s worth. It was like the country cousins up from Ekatahuna, mum with map book on her knee, lost on Spaghetti Junction,” wrote Brian Rudman in the New Zealand Herald.
“It has been instructive to reflect on the loss of TE901 on Mt Erebus … It is clear from the cockpit transcripts that at least some on the flight deck knew that they did not know where they were. It was therefore a substantial error of judgement that the pilot did not immediately climb his aircraft to a safe altitude at the moment in which the doubt was first raised,” said Keith Rankin on Scoop.
“There was probably more than one cause involved, as I’ve read the Erebus situation, but it is certainly clear I think in retrospect that the pilots could not bear the full blame for what happened,” said Michael Cullen on Newstalk ZB reported in the New Zealand Herald.

CHIPPINDALE REPORT
On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand’s DC10 flight TE901, on a sightseeing mission to Antarctica, crashed into the slopes of Ross Island. It was at 1,500 ft (457 m) and heading towards the 12,450 ft (3,795 m) Mt Erebus. Its number 1 engine, and most probably all three engines, were in climb settings of 94% of maximum power just below a level which might damage the engines. The ground speed was 257 knots or 476 kph. On impact the shock waves passed through the victims’ bodies at about 960 kph killing all 257 before nerve impulses at about 140 kph could transmit any pain, so the victims felt nothing.
New Zealand’s Chief Inspector of Air Accidents of the Ministry of Transport, Ron Chippindale, investigated the cause of the crash. Ian Gemmell, a member of the airline’s management team, and its principal witness who argued the airline’s case that pilot error caused the crash was said to be Chippindale’s principal adviser and perhaps only adviser regarding the technicalities of jet flight and DC10 navigation. He accompanied Chippindale to the DC10’s manufacturer and was among those who went with Chippindale to the crash site. He was present when Chippindale interviewed pilots. Reports from Chippindale’s office were leaked to the media who reported the aircraft had been flying in cloud.
When the Chippindale Report was published it said the crash was caused by pilot error. The pilots didn’t know where they were, “the crew was not certain of their position”. “The crew were not monitoring their actual position in relation to the topography adequately”. “The crew descended beneath the minimum altitude permitted by the airline.” The co-pilot “should not have overcome his natural caution in relation to cloud covered high ground.” The captain decided “to continue the flight at low level toward an area of poor surface and horizon definition.” The report’s findings coincided with the arguments Gemmell subsequently put forward on behalf of Air New Zealand in claiming the crash was caused by pilot error and the airline’s management was blameless.

MAHON REPORT
Justice Peter Mahon was appointed on 11 June 1980 as a Royal Commission of Inquiry to inquire into the crash. The inquiry was in public, the evidence extended over 75 days and filled 3,083 pages, while submissions of counsel took 368 pages. The total of exhibits produced was 284. In contrast the Chippindale Report’s inquiry was held in private and, with few exceptions, statements of evidence were not taken. Finally Chippindale made no evidence public. The Mahon Report overturned Chippindale’s findings of pilot error and instead decided that “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.” “… neither Captain Collins [the pilot] nor First Officer Cassin [the co-pilot] nor [Brooks and Moloney] the flight engineers made any error which contributed to the disaster, and were not responsible for its occurrence.”
He went on to say in respect of Air New Zealand’s case which had asserted that the pilots were to blame for the crash “… the palpably false sections of evidence which I heard could not have been the result of mistake, or faulty recollection. They originate, I am compelled to say, in a pre-determined plan of deception. They were very clearly part of an attempt to conceal a series of disastrous administrative blunders and so, in regard to the particular items of evidence to which I have referred, I am forced reluctantly to say that I had to listen to an orchestrated litany of lies.”
Air New Zealand applied for judicial review to the Court of Appeal against the “orchestrated litany of lies”. The Court held Mahon had no jurisdiction to make such a finding and he could not say that unless he had first warned the witnesses that he did not believe their evidence. Mahon appealed to the Privy Council but it upheld the Court of Appeal, saying there was no evidence of a pre-determined plan of deception, he didn’t warn the witnesses, and his reasoning was illogical. Much publicity followed. What is now forgotten by many is that the Privy Council did not accept the Chippindale Report as being correct and indeed went out of its way to uphold the Mahon Report in exonerating the pilots from blame for the crash.

THE COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER
The Chippindale Report printed a transcript of the tape from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) which recorded the last 30 minutes of the flight and which has been repeatedly quoted by the media in subsequent years. The cockpit area microphone (CAM) recorded voices from the cockpit area including those of passengers on the flight deck and, when the door was open, those behind the flight deck including persons in the galley. It was discovered that the transcript printed in the Chippindale Report was not the original transcript which had been transcribed by a team working in Washington at the Audio Laboratory of the National Transportation Safety Board in accordance with accepted procedure (Washington transcript). This procedure required the transcribers to be familiar with the persons whose voices were recorded, familiarity with the aircraft type, and familiarity with flight deck procedure and terminology.
The Washington transcription team under the direction of an air accident inspector consisted of Captain Barney Wyatt, Don Oliff, the chief flight engineer, and Captain Arthur Cooper who had over 13,000 hours flying time including over 2,000 as pilot in command of DC10s and was an experienced navigator. All knew the deceased flight crew members well, having crewed and socialised with them on many occasions. Cooper knew the engineer Moloney even better than the others. They had a long time friendship dating back before Cooper joined Air New Zealand in 1965 and continuing until Moloney’s death. Chippindale did not possess any of the requirements. Cooper was the only one of the Washington team to give evidence. He was appointed on behalf of the Airline Pilots Association. Air New Zealand appointed the other two members of the transcription team but did not call them to give evidence.
The Chippindale transcript was instead one rewritten by Chippindale himself and contained not less than 55 departures from the Washington transcript. Each departure varied from one word to several lines. For instance one question he added to the Washington transcript seemed to imply one engineer was saying to the other called Bert that the weather was a bit thick here, even though neither engineer was called Bert. Other changes he made removed from the record evidence of the crew’s competence during the flight. Air New Zealand’s principal witness, Gemmell, listened to the tape with Chippindale.
The most lasting damage done by the Chippindale Report was its accusations that the transcript showed the engineers were trying to convince the pilots who were lost not to fly into cloud thereby risking destruction. This folklore is illustrated by the articles Rudman and Rankin have written.
That Chippindale’s allegations are fiction not fact is proved first by the fact that they are contrary to the “crew-loop” discipline, secondly by the record of the very words spoken by the two engineers Brooks and Moloney and the two pilots Collins and Cassin, and thirdly by overwhelming evidence also disproving his 1987 claims based on tone of voice.
First, the crew-loop or fail-safe system to ensure the safe flying of DC10s did not rely on the skill of the captain but relied instead, in the usual case, on the triangular link of three people on the flight deck, being the two pilots in front and the flight engineer seated between the two pilots but slightly to the rear of them. In this instance, on flight 901 it was more than just a triangular link as there were two engineers on the flight deck. In the case of flight 901 it can be virtually taken for granted Brooks would be facing forwards from the time he took over from Moloney and the critical period starts from then. In all probability Moloney would have been standing slightly to the rear of Brooks’s left shoulder. The CAM would have been positioned directly above or slightly to the rear of Brooks’s head so it would pick up the voices of Collins, Cassin, and Brooks clearly.
Airlines run with fail-safe systems. If a main system fails then a backup system will take over and carry the load. The same fail-safe system is applied to the flight crew and was called the crew-loop or simply the loop. Flight deck communication involves a continual flow of comments, questions, observations, and confirmations being circulated between the three members of the flight crew. So that if one member should fail to respond in an appropriate manner, then the other two must take the necessary action, which is to remove the unresponsive member from the loop, that is to remove him from flying the aircraft. A vital part of the crew loop is detecting and interpreting body language.
Gordon Vette, author of Impact Erebus, discoverer of sector whiteout, and a witness before the Royal Commission gave a dramatic example of the loop as practised in the DC10 simulator. A note is secretly passed to one of the pilots saying “You’ve had a heart attack”. Without showing many overt signs the pilot ceases to take part in flying. If the loop works well the two other crew will notice this within seconds. The engineer will pull the seat withdrawal lever to pull the “dead” pilot clear of the controls and check the flight position and instruments with the other pilot before attempting first aid.
One of the engineers, Brooks, was an instructor in fail-safe training. He was a firm disciplinarian on the flight deck and came down hard on anyone who seemed not to be concentrating.
Cooper told the Royal Commission:
“It is also important to understand the three crew ‘fail-safe’ concept utilised in flying an Air New Zealand DC10. One of the basic fundamentals of this philosophy is that it is the inherent responsibility of every crew member, if he be unsure, unhappy or whatever, to question the pilot in command as to the nature of his concern … if a pilot in command were to create an atmosphere whereby one of his crew members would be hesitant to comment on any action, then he would be failing in his duty as pilot in command. I have no doubt that if any crew member on Captain Collins’ flight had any concern about the progress they would have not hesitated to advise Captain Collins of that concern. Some remarks in the tape transcript are suggested [by the Chippindale Report] as having been directed to the Captain and to have indicated concern on the part of the person who made the remark [an engineer].
“Any such remark would be in the nature of a challenge in the ‘fail-safe’ concept and would be responded to. When the transcript shows that there has been no response to a remark, the remark must be regarded as conversational and not a challenge nor critical or important as to the operation of the aircraft and indeed it must be a matter of doubt as to whether Captain Collins was aware of the remark having been made at all.”
Secondly, the record of all that was said by Collins and Cassin during the critical final period of the flight demonstrates that there was no acknowledgment by them of the remarks which Chippindale attributed to the flight engineers and which he claimed showed increasing concern on their part.
If the remarks had indeed been made as a challenge in the crew loop and Collins or Cassin heard them, the pilots would have responded to them. If the pilots had not responded, the engineers would have repeated them. This disproves Chippindale’s allegations. Furthermore, the actual words spoken by the engineers show no sign of so-called mounting alarm.
The following records all that was said by pilots Collins and Cassin from 46:14. It proves from that time at least they did not acknowledge the remarks which Chippindale attributed to the flight engineers and which he claimed showed increasing concern on their part. If the remarks had indeed been made as a challenge in the crew loop and Collins or Cassin heard them, then the pilots would have responded to them. If the pilots had not responded, then the engineers would have repeated them.
This is because of strict fail-safe or “crew-loop” discipline imposed on flight crews under which they must respond to comments made by others in the flight crew to prove they heard and understood the comment and where appropriate are reacting to it. Furthermore Brooks was himself a fail-safe instructor. The extract printed below demonstrates the crew-loop in operation. Note especially from 48:55. Times GMT, 46:14 being 0046:14 GMT.

THE FINAL 3 MINUTES: WHAT THE PILOTS SAID
46:14 Collins: Two nine three oh ... right
Cassin: Yes
46:21 Cassin: A thousand to go.
Collins: O.K.
46:24 Cassin: Alt, Nav track, vert speed.
Collins: Speed.
46:28 Cassin: Speed I see.
46:43 Cassin: Yep Yep.
47:06 Unidentified voice: Down to two thousand feet. [Comment from source other than pilots on the aircraft arriving at 2,999 ft. The acceptance of this altitude is not queried.]
Collins: Yes
Cassin: Yes
47:20 Collins: You’ve got speed set up there anyway, haven’t you?
47:23 Cassin: Yes alt cap (nav) track
47:28 Collins: Speed nav track alt ...
47:43 Collins: We might have to (drop) down to fifteen hundred here I think. [Washington transcript. Chippindale rewrote “drop” as “pop”. Both Collins and Cassin with the best forward vision concur in the decision to descend to 1,500 feet.]
Cassin: Yes O.K.
47:47 Cassin: Probably see further anyway.
47:49 Cassin: It’s not too bad. [This is before the commencement of descent from 2,000 feet to 1,500 feet.]
47:55 Cassin: I see vert speed for fifteen hundred feet
48:10 Collins: Right [Chippindale transcript. Not recorded on Washington transcript]
48:12 Cassin: (Terrain) fifteen hundred
48:22 Cassin: Alt hold
48:30 Collins: We didn’t get that TACAN frequency did we?
Cassin: No
48:38 Unidentified voice: What’s the frequency one oh nine two? [Comment from source other than pilots]
48:40 Cassin: Well we think that’s what it is, but it’s channel twenty nine.
48:46 Collins: Actually those conditions don’t look very good at all, do they? [Note he says “those” not “these”.]
Mulgrew: No they don’t. [Comment from source other than pilots]
48:50 Mulgrew: You’re down at one one four now are you? [Comment from source other than pilots]
48:51 Collins: Fifteen hundred.
48:55 Collins: Have we got them on the tower? [Cooper believed from his personal knowledge of the parties and his involvement in the transcription that this is Collins’s first positive indication of concern. But his tone of voice showed he was puzzled not worried. It was asked as a question. Although Collins is not concerned about terrain obstruction, he is saying that something is not jelling here, we are not getting some sighting of these buildings, or any of the things which I would have expected would be coming into view.”]
48:59 Cassin: No ... I’ll try again. [Cooper explains that Cassin also sounded puzzled not anxious. His confirmatory demur put into the loop.]
49:04 Collins: Try them again
Cassin: O.K.
49:24 Brooks: I don’t like this. [Brooks’s first positive indication of anxiety or concern. It’s the first verbal as opposed to tonal demur. [Sitting between pilots but about 400mm behind them almost certainly facing forward. His view to the right is blocked by the engineer’s panel, so he has lost sight of Cape Bird (which he believes is Cape Bernacchi) on the right. Mulgrew seated and Moloney standing on his left have probably blocked his view of Cape Tennyson (which he believes is Cape Royds). He has gone into full whiteout, so he expresses concern. The pilots are still only in sector whiteout.]
49:50 Impact

THE FINAL 3 MINUTES: WHAT THE ENGINEERS SAID
46:39 Brooks: Where’s Erebus in relation to us at the moment? [Question is directed to either Moloney or Mulgrew]
Mulgrew/Moloney : Left (about four or five miles) about 11 o’clock. ((Sound of paper rustling))
46:43 Mulgrew/Moloney: Left do you reckon?
Mulgrew/Moloney: Well no [pause] I think.
Mulgrew/Moloney: I’ve been looking for it.
46:46 Mulgrew/Moloney: I think it’ll be erh
46:48 Brooks: I’m just thinking of any high ground in the area that’s all.
Mulgrew: I think it’ll be left yeah.
Moloney: Yeah I reckon about here.
Mulgrew: Yes [pause] no no I don’t really know.
47:02 Mulgrew: That’s the edge. [Mistakenly identifies Cape Royds on edge of Ross Island when in fact looking at cliffs on left of Lewis Bay.]
47:06 Unidentified: [unintelligible word] Two thousand feet.
Collins: Yep.
Cassin: Yep.
47:16 Brooks: Yeah I just
[47:18] Brooks didn’t want to block the window too completely with it.
47:20 Collins: You’ve got speed set up there anyway, haven’t you?
47:23 Moloney: Alt cap. [Moloney has announced he has seen the enunciator light displaying “alt cap”, showing the aircraft is initiating a capture of the selected altitude.]
47:43 Collins: We might have to (drop) down to fifteen hundred here I think.
Cassin: Yeah OK.
47:55 Cassin: I see vert speed for fifteen hundred feet [vert speed in flight guidance system used to initiate descent.]
[47:57] Moloney: [unintelligible words] it’s not right
Unidentified: [unintelligible words]
47:59 Moloney: Yeah bloody oath.
48:05 [The word “instruments” was spoken by someone but after Mahon, Baragwanath, Turner , Tench, and Shaddick had listened to the passage, they agreed it was unintelligible or not sufficiently intelligible to be given any reliable meaning. What was shown as one sentence in the transcript was probably two sentences relating to different subjects and possibly by different speakers.]
[48:08] Brooks: Alt cap.
Mulgrew: Ross Island there [Sentence interrupted] Erebus should be here.
Unidentified: Alt hold. [Someone has announced he has seen the enunciator light displaying “alt hold” showing the aircraft has completed the capture of the selected altitude.]
[48:10] Moloney: Yeh yeh. [Moloney appears to concur with Mulgrew, albeit mistakenly, on location of Erebus.]
48:23 Brooks: Hold on both nav track. [Navigation track followed by auto pilot]
48:30 Collins: Ah we didn’t ah get that ah TACAN frequency did we?
Cassin: No.
48:36 Brooks:(Have) we got the (AIRAD) [British equivalent of the Jeppeson navigation manuals] [unintelligible word] on the aircraft? [Suggesting Cassin looks up TACAN frequency in the AIRAD.]
49:00 Moloney: (Only got them on HF that’s all.) [Refers to radio comms with Control Tower.]
49:04 Collins: Try em again.
Cassin: OK.
49:08 Mulgrew: Looks like the edge of Ross Island there. [Still believes he’s looking at Cape Royds while in fact he’s looking at Cape Tennyson.]
49:24 Brooks: I don’t like this. [Sitting between pilots but about 400mm behind them and is almost certainly facing forward. His view to the right is blocked by the engineer’s panel, so he has lost sight of Cape Bird (which he believes is Cape Bernacchi) on the right. Mulgrew seated and Moloney standing on his left have probably blocked his view of Cape Tennyson (which he believes is Cape Royds) . Has gone into full whiteout, so he expresses concern. The pilots are still only in sector whiteout.]
49:25 Collins: Have you got anything from him? [Anything on radio from Control Tower?]
Cassin: No.
49:30 Collins: We’re twenty six miles north we’ll have to climb out of this. [Sounds puzzled not worried.]
Unidentified : OK
49:33 Cassin: It’s clear on on the right. [In right hand seat, he can still see terrain on right, so he is not yet in full whiteout.]
Collins: Is it?
Cassin: Yep.
49:35 Mulgrew/Moloney: You can see (Ross Island). [Probably Mulgrew. Could not be positively distinguished.]
49:38 Cassin: You’re clear to turn right there’s
Collins: No negative [Sitting on left, Collins has lost sight of terrain on right, so is unwilling to fly to the right. He is in full whiteout to the right]
Cassin: No high ground if you do a one eighty. [Cassin on the right can still see terrain to the right, so he repeats his suggestion.]
49:44 ((Ground proximity warning tone – warning continues until impact))
[49:46] Brooks: Five hundred feet. [Calls decreasing ground clearances.]
[49:48] Brooks: Four hundred feet.
49:50 Impact [Aircraft impacts on 13-14 degree slope at about 1,500 ft above sea level.]
In 1987 during a claim for compensation by the dependents of the deceased Chippindale asserted that the engineers displayed their mounting alarm by the tone of their voices. Here again the evi-dence disproves his claim. He also claimed by implication that the voices marked by the Washington team as unidentified were in fact the voices of the engineers. He claimed this despite previously saying “At no time did I attribute any comment to any person. I relied totally upon the recognition of the voices made by the team in Washington.” One needs to examine his 1987 claim in greater detail.
When asked whether he was able to discern any indication of concern or anxiety in the voices of any of the crew members on the flight deck, Chippindale replied that from the time of 0041:45 GMT when a voice said “my God”, “there was a mounting atmosphere of concern among those that were speaking.” He pointed out that the expression immediately followed Collins’s words “Tell him [the control tower] we can make a visual [pause] descent.” Chippindale is by implication attributing the phrase “my God” to one of the engineers, horrified at the prospect of a visual descent, and denying it was some extraneous comment by some passenger or cabin crew member perhaps referring in awe to the scenery. He said the time the engineers’ sounds of concern become continuous commenced when somebody asked where Erebus was [at 43:27]. He said “… there was no reassuring event after that.” However the record of everything the pilots said starting from three minutes later at 46:14 shows they made no acknowledgment to what Chippindale claims were continuous sounds of concern.
The further evidence against Chippindale being correct is:
• Of the three-man Washington team Cooper detected no sound of mounting alarm and believes that neither Wyatt nor Oliff did either.
• Mahon and David Baragwanath (who was counsel assisting the Commission, later to become Justice Baragwanath) listened to the tapes many times in Auckland, in Farnborough, and Washington. Mahon concluded Chippindale was wrong while Baragwanath in his submissions made no reference to hearing mounting concern, which he certainly would have done if he had heard it.
• Three overseas specialists in CVR transcription, Shaddick, Tench, and Turner, also listened to the tape together with Mahon and Baragwanath. Had any of them heard mounting concern they would have discussed it with the New Zealanders.
• One Farnborough CVR transcription specialist, Davis, listened to the tape first with Chippindale and later with Mahon and Baragwanath. He agreed with Chippindale contrary to the Washington team that certain words were spoken but later when given more facts he offered no opinion. He is not reported as hearing concern by tone of voice, so on this point he can be added to the other eight who heard no concern.
• So a total of at least seven and probably nine persons listened to the tape without hearing sounds of mounting concern as opposed to Chippindale alone who claimed to hear them. Or rather we must assume that Air New Zealand’s representative Gemmell also heard them since he listened with Chippindale, but Gemmell gave no evidence on the point.
• Chippindale chose not to reveal that his theory depended on tone of voice in his evidence before the Royal Commission so he could not be asked to point to the passages when the tape was played in public. He had legal representation.
• Air New Zealand who were zealous in pointing at every possible avenue of pilot error never adopted Chippindale’s argument.
• The voice saying “my God”, which Chippindale claimed first showed concern by the engineers was marked as unidentified by the Washington team.
• The alleged dereliction of duty would have persisted from 41:45 (the time of the “my God” remark) until 49:24 when Brooks said “I don’t like this” which Cooper says was a genuine expression of concern. Six seconds later Collins said “… we’ll have to climb out of this”.
• It is not credible to assert the engineers would have continued in dereliction of their fail-safe drill procedure by not protesting in the strongest possible terms if they believed the DC10 faced impending danger.
• Chippindale in his transcript did not purport to identify the voice which said “my God”.
• Chippindale admitted in evidence he could not identify the voice.
• Brooks expressed no concern when at 45:18 he said the DC10 was about to make a further descent to 2,000 feet.
• The actual words used by the engineers reflect a normal flight deck conversation and are at variance with a theory of mounting alarm.
• The engineers had no reason to express mounting concern at Collins’s decision to make a visual descent. The pilots believed they knew exactly where the DC10 was located because of the DC10’s navigation computer, namely at the entrance to McMurdo Sound. They could see the black rock cliffs of the Capes on each side of what they had every reason to believe was the Sound. Cloud cover was not continuous. There were large breaks between the clouds. Collins said he proposed to descend visually. There was no suggestion he proposed to make a cloud penetration. Low level flying in the area by the airline was standard practice and known by the whole New Zealand community which was why passengers booked flights.
• Chippindale admitted he did not know the crew.
• Chippindale admitted he had no experience as a crew member on a DC10.
• He had no experience of the DC10’s computer navigation system.
• He wasn’t familiar with Air New Zealand’s procedures.
• He wasn’t familiar with DC10 aircraft.
• The cockpit area microphone, as previously noted, picked up voices from not just the flight crew but also from persons in the cockpit area, including those in the galley and passengers on the flight deck wanting a view. For example one passenger was found strapped into a seat used only on the flight deck.
• Chippindale’s theory requires all four flight crew on the flight deck to have breached their duty, the engineers by failing to get the pilots to pay attention to their fears and the pilots for failing to heed them.
• A third pilot, Lucas, although not on duty, would clearly be monitoring this part of the flight carefully from the passenger cabin and he would have forcibly made his concerns felt, had he believed the DC10 was in any danger.
• Mulgrew, although he was a commentator and not a member of the flight crew, would have expressed his feelings had he believed the DC10 was in danger.
• Had the engineers in truth “expressed their dissatisfaction with the descent toward a cloud covered area”, then they must have known of the perils of whiteout under those conditions. Because it is the presence of clouds overhead when there are white surfaces below which causes whiteout. The airline, the management of which did know of whiteout, had never revealed its existence to the line pilots who actually had to fly the sightseeing flights. It is not credible that the engineers should have somehow discovered for themselves the phenomenon of whiteout and then permitted the pilots to descend without making the most vociferous protests and without explaining the deadly nature of whiteout to the pilots.
• Chippindale claimed the engineers “expressed their mounting alarm as the approach continued on at low level toward the area of low cloud.” Readers would infer the crew is about to fly into cloud which was visible as cloud. This is not correct. In actual fact the pilots were flying into sector whiteout not into cloud. Passenger photographs, taken shortly before impact, show sun streaming in through cabin windows, while other photographs looking out through the windows show clear views unobstructed by cloud. The pilots made 13 or more comments on the transcript that they were in visual meteorological conditions.
When did the pilots first sound even puzzled? Cooper said:
• The pilots’ voices did not sound puzzled until 48:55 when Collins asked “Have we got them on the tower?” which was only 35 seconds before Collins decided to climb out.
• Cassin first sounded puzzled when he replied at 48:59 “No [pause] I’ll try him again.”
• Brooks sounded really concerned at 49:24 when said “I don’t like this.”
• At 49:25 Collins confirms that concern is mounting when he says “Have you got anything from him?”
• An uneasy reply of “No” follows from Cassin.
• Collins’s last comment at 49:49 “Go round power please” sounded professional but with a degree of anxiety in his voice.
Collins is following standard go around drill to pull up even though he can see, so he believes, the clear space of McMurdo Sound 40 miles ahead. Had he believed the DC10 was in real danger because they were flying in cloud, then his voice would have carried great anxiety and he would have “firewalled” the engines in a genuine emergency climb.
So what did Chippindale actually do in order to create his theory of mounting concern? He took overlapping snatches of dif-ferent conversations of passengers and cabin crew speaking in the galley area and flight deck and attributed them to the engi-neers when the Washington team agreed the voices were unidentifiable. He added words to the transcript which the Washington team agreed were unintelligible and suggested they suited his theory that the engineers were expressing their concern about flying conditions to the pilots. He latched onto a few remarks passing between Mulgrew and Moloney. After his theory was disproved by evidence given to the Royal Commission in 1980, he claimed seven years later, contrary to the opinions of seven to nine others, and supported only by Gemmell, that the engineers expressed mounting alarm by their tone of voice.
The conclusion must be that Chippindale’s claims are untrue. The engineers voiced no queries about the proposed descent, expressed no mounting alarm as the flight continued, and expressed no dissatisfaction. Those claims ought not to have been made by an inspector of air accidents. They brought no credit to the Office of Air Accidents Investigation. They were approved for release to the public by the Minister of Transport on 12 June 1980 and are still at the time of writing on the website of that Office’s successor. They have done lasting damage. They must have caused grief over the years to the flight crew’s families. They have created a fantasy scenario of events which supposedly led to the disaster that endures in the public mind to this day as media comments such as Cullen’s, Rudman’s, and Rankin’s bear witness and perpetuates this untrue scenario into history.
Chippindale’s evidence in the court case brought for compensation by the dependents of those killed by the crash against the US Government no doubt contributed to their case failing. He attended in person to give evidence “at the direction of the New Zealand Government”. The US Government paid for his transportation to and from the US.
He has said: “One thing I will state solemnly is that no attempt was made by me to tailor the CVR readout or insert comments which were not clear to me”.

PRIVY COUNCIL UPHOLDS MAHON ON CVR
The Privy Council agreed that Mahon was correct in rejecting Chippindale’s interpretation of the CVR, saying:
“The other principal reason why the Judge felt able to displace Mr Chippindale’s ascription of the cause of the accident to pilot error was that certain remarks forming part of the conversations recorded in the CVR of the crashed aircraft and attributed by Mr Chippindale to the flight engineers had suggested to him that shortly before the crash they were expressing to the pilot and navigator uncertainty about the aircraft’s position. The tape from the CVR which had been recovered from the site of the crash proved difficult to interpret. The Judge, with the thoroughness that characterised him throughout his investigations, went to great pains to obtain the best possible expert assistance in the interpretation of the tape. The result was that he was able to conclude that the remarks attributed by Mr Chippindale to the flight engineers could not have been made by them, and that there was nothing recorded in the CVR that was capable of throwing any doubt upon the confident belief of all members of the crew that the NAV track was taking the aircraft on the flight path as it had been plotted by Captain Collins on his atlas and chart, and thus down the middle of McMurdo Sound well to the west of Mt Erebus.”

PRIVY COUNCIL UPHOLDS MAHON ON WHITEOUT
John Roughan New Zealand Herald:
“Mahon’s true insight in retrospect was not the cover-up or even the aircraft’s computer co-ordinates, it was the polar atmospheric phenomenon he described. A ‘whiteout’ was not, as most people assumed, a blizzard. It was a trick of the polar light that could obliterate the horizon on a cloudy day and cause low-flying pilots to hit a mountain they could not distinguish from a flat landscape.”
The Privy Council agreed with Mahon’s finding that whiteout was an essential ingredient of the disaster saying:
“Its effect, in meteorological conditions such as prevailed at the time of the crash in the area where it happened, would be to induce in a pilot, unaware that any such phenomenon could exist, the belief that he had unlimited visibility ahead and that he was flying over a flat terrain, since ‘whiteout’ prevents changes in levels of the terrain over and towards which the aircraft is flying from being perceived by the pilot even though the change in level is as great as that of a precipitous mountainside such as that of Mt Erebus. The Judge makes out an overwhelming case in his Report that the aircraft was in a ‘whiteout’ when it crashed into that volcano.”
The form of whiteout (“white surface whiteout”) referred to by the Privy Council and which contributed to the crash is the insidious optical illusion present in polar conditions where white surfaces exist. It leads pilots to believe they are flying in clear air and so can see any obstructions ahead; when in fact, although they are in clear air, any obstructions have been rendered invisible. This phenomenon would make an obstacle a few feet ahead invisible if the obstacle were white, even in reported visibilities of 40 miles. The contribution of this form of whiteout to the crash, in particular “sector whiteout” in which only one sector within the pilots’ vision is in whiteout, was discovered by Gordon Vette who subsequently received an honorary D.Eng. from the University of Glasgow for his research on visual perception.
The other form widely known by New Zealand pilots without polar training before Erebus involves broadly speaking (there are sub-groups) blown snow or snow showers in which pilots are conscious of being in whiteout.
When preparing for the McMurdo Sound flights to commence in 1977 Air New Zealand management knew of white surface whiteout and had attended the RNZAF briefing for air force flights to McMurdo Sound. Gemmell made a deliberate decision to conceal the existence of whiteout from the crews who flew to the Antarctic. He explained he did this because if pilots had been told, they would have believed they were permitted to descend beneath 16,000 feet which he claimed they were prohibited from doing. His reasoning was that 16,000 ft was above the level of Mt Erebus, so at that altitude whiteout was irrelevant.
However the following evidence given to the Royal Commission disproves Gemmell’s claim a prohibition existed:
• The briefing officer admitted he never imposed such a prohibition;
• flights to the McMurdo area commencing on 18 October 1977 were without exception flown at low levels;
• Air New Zealand publicised low level flying in Antarctica so widely (including distribution to every household in New Zealand) that management’s denial of knowledge did not carry credibility;
The possible existence of white surface whiteout renders low level flying in Antarctica without special precautions perilous, so polar trained pilots regarded the pilots of flight 901 as foolhardy in flying at low level in white surface whiteout conditions. This explains why such pilots have subsequently criticised the 901 flight crew.
Chippindale claimed that when the crew made their descent orbit they would have noticed broken sea ice but when they approached Lewis Bay they would have seen no such breaks and he implied that from that fact they should have deduced the existence of the phenomenon of whiteout and so realised they were not approaching McMurdo Sound but must be approaching Lewis Bay made by sector whiteout to look the same as McMurdo Sound and realised that Mt Erebus must lie ahead concealed in whiteout. His reasoning is invalid. The crew would have expected McMurdo Sound to present a flat, featureless, unbroken expanse as contrasted with the broken sea ice of the Ross Sea. Nowhere else but in McMurdo Sound would they expect to see such a clear expanse.

AIR NEW ZEALAND CHANGES CO-ORDINATES
Though the global positioning system (GPS) with its pinpoint accuracy did not exist in 1979, the DC10’s navigation system, the AINS, was state of the art for its time, being highly accurate and reliable. After flying from Auckland to McMurdo, a distance of 3,000 miles, the cross-track error was only 1.2 miles and distance error 3.1 miles. It was not uncommon on the Auckland-Honolulu route for the northbound aircraft at 35,000 feet to have its radio altimeter triggered by the southbound aircraft on a reciprocal track passing directly underneath in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
On dispatch the crew were given a printout from Air New Zealand’s navigation computer being a flight plan having the latitude and longitude of each of the waypoints. One of the crew, probably Cassin, typed these co-ordinates into the DC10’s onboard computer.
While Flight 901 flew south from New Zealand to Antarctica on the track loaded into its navigation computer the auto pilot took it over the same route which Collins had plotted onto his maps from the flight plan the airline had previously given him on briefing on 9 November. The crew would have checked the DC10 was still on this track as it approached Buckle Island, and again as it approached Cape Hallett, its second to last waypoint.
What the pilots did not know, as the airline never told them, was that at 2.10 am that very morning the airline had shifted the final waypoint from the safe location of West Dailey Island in the middle of McMurdo Sound by 26-28 nautical miles east so that it ran to a waypoint lying behind the 12,450 ft Mt Erebus situated behind Lewis Bay on Ross Island.
The DC10 was flying above cloud but passenger photos produced to the Royal Commission proved that there were large breaks between the clouds. Collins decided to descend through one of these breaks so that he could fly visually up the safety of McMurdo Sound. He’d been told visibility was 40 miles. Being a cautious pilot he decided that not only would he descend visually but he would also keep to the navigation track he had plotted on his maps.
He descended through one of the breaks between the clouds in a conventional figure of eight descent orbit. Unknown to him, as the airline had never revealed its existence to him, he placed himself in peril, because below cloud in Antarctic conditions he became subject to the optical illusions created by whiteout.
He locked the DC10 onto nav track and flew south at 2,000 ft descending to 1,500 ft. Before them the crew saw what they confidently believed to be the entrance to McMurdo Sound exactly where it ought to be located in relation to the nav track plotted from the briefing onto their maps. The geographic features matched what all of them, including the experienced Antarctic observer Peter Mulgrew, were expecting and furthermore those features lay on the expected points of the compass (“azimuth bearings”).
However what they were observing was not the flat expanse of McMurdo Sound as they believed. Instead they were looking at Lewis Bay and Mt Erebus concealed in sector whiteout. The effect of whiteout made the entrance to Lewis Bay appear to the pilots to be the entrance to McMurdo Sound.

NON NOTIFICATION
For an ordinary flight, say Auckland to Honolulu, the airline’s flight plan was contained on a cassette which the pilots fed into their on board navigation computer. The tapes were updated every 28 days. Whenever a change to a route was made between the issue of cassettes the consortium of airlines which produced the cassettes issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM) giving details. The Antarctic flights, not being a standard route, did not have cassettes, instead their flight plans were keyboarded into the DC10’s computer. The airline changed the co-ordinates without issuing its own NOTAM and without telling the dispatch officer.
The chief navigator said he asked the flight services controller (flight dispatch) to amend the flight plan on 20 November 1979, the day before Captain White’s flight was due to depart. At first the controller said he didn’t know why he didn’t make the change that day as asked but he later said the navigator hadn’t told him until the next day after White’s flight had departed. Neither the navigator nor the controller radioed White to tell him of the “error” which his flight plan supposedly contained and which the change was to supposedly “correct”. Air New Zealand flights had already flown on that allegedly erroneous flight plan for 14 months. As already noted the airline did nothing for a week until it finally shifted the co-ordinates only five hours 50 minutes before flight 901 was due to depart.
Flight plans had an “ops flash” line at the top for important information for pilots. The airline ought to have entered up the change to the co-ordinates here, but didn’t.
Had the pilots been NOTAMed, the dispatch officer been told, or the ops flash entered up, then the disaster would never have happened.
The airline said it didn’t do any of those things because it thought the change it was making was not 26-28 nautical miles but only 2.1 nautical miles and hence not worth mentioning. In effect it said it would continue not to notify pilots of such changes.

PRIVY COUNCIL CONCURS WITH MAHON ON CO-ORDINATES
The Privy Council agreed with Mahon’s finding that since the airline briefed the pilots on a McMurdo Sound flight plan, but on dispatch gave them an Erebus flight plan, there was no pilot error, saying:
“The Judge was able to displace Mr Chippindale’s attribution of the accident to pilot error, for two main reasons. The most important was that at the inquiry there was evidence from Captain Collins’ widow and daughters, which had not been available to Mr Chippindale at the time of his investigation and was previously unknown to the management of Air New Zealand, that after the briefing of 9 November 1979 Captain Collins, who had made a note of the co ordinates of the Western Waypoint [the Dailey Islands waypoint in McMurdo Sound] that were on the flight plan used at that briefing, had, at his own home, plotted on an atlas and upon a larger topographical chart the track from the Cape Hallett waypoint to the Western Waypoint.
“There was evidence that he had taken this atlas and chart with him on the fatal flight and the inference was plain that in the course of piloting the aircraft he and First Officer Cassin had used the lines that he had plotted to show him where the aircraft was when he switched from NAV track to heading select in order to make a descent to 2,000 feet while still to the north of Ross Island which he reported to ATC [the Control Tower] at McMurdo and to which he received ATC’s consent.
“That on completing this descent he switched back to NAV track is incapable of being reconciled with any other explanation than that he was relying upon the line he had himself plotted of the flight track on which he had been briefed. It was a combination of his own meticulous conscientiousness in taking the trouble to plot for himself on a topographical chart the flight track that had been referred to at his briefing, and the fact that he had no previous experience of “whiteout” and had been given no warning at any time that such a deceptive phenomenon even existed, that caused the disaster.”

PRIVY COUNCIL UPHOLDS MAHON ON CAUSATION
The Privy Council said of The Chippindale Report: “In effect, although there are criticisms elsewhere in his report of management practices of Air New Zealand in relation to Antarctic flights, Mr Chippindale ascribed the principal blame for the tragedy to pilot error.”
The Privy Council then summarised The Mahon Report’s findings by quoting these extracts from it:
“ ... The dominant cause of the disaster was the act of the airline in changing the computer track of the aircraft without telling the aircrew.
“In my opinion therefore, 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.”
The Privy Council said there was ample supportive evidence for these findings. The Privy Council placed on record their tribute to the brilliant and painstaking investigative work undertaken by the Judge with the support of counsel appointed to assist him, Baragwanath. The Privy Council said: “The Royal Commission Report [the Mahon Report] convincingly clears Captain Collins and First Officer Cassin of any suggestion that negligence on their part had in any way contributed to the disaster.”

ACCEPTED BY AVIATION COMMUNITY
The Mahon Report transformed the investigation of accidents and was finally recognised as valid by the aviation community in 1994. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in its Safety Digest on Human Factors No. 10 used the flight 901 disaster to demonstrate how latent and active failures combine to cause an organisational accident. The disasters ICAO refers to are: Chernobyl, the world’s worst nuclear power accident 1986; Bhopal, the world’s worst industrial accident 1984 (6,500 killed, 20,000-50,000 seriously injured); Clapham Junction railway collision 1989; Kings Cross underground fire 1989; Dryden, a fatal aircraft accident in Dryden, Ontario 1989. ICAO concludes:
“The [Mahon] Report and most of its associated literature were produced ten years before Dryden; they generated violent controversy and remained inconspicuously shelved until recently. The [Mahon] Report was, probably, ten years ahead of its time. After all, Chernobyl, Bhopal, Clapham Junction, Kings Cross and other major high technology systems catastrophes had yet to happen. They need not have happened. In retrospect, if the aviation community – and the safety community at large – had grasped the message from Antarctica and applied its lessons, Chernobyl, Bhopal, Clapham Junction, Kings Cross and certainly the Dryden report would not have existed.”

CASUALTY LIST

ADDIS Peter James 29 Te Atatu * ALLAN Alan Lawrence Malyon 59 Clive * ALLAN Jane Phillipa 17 Clive * ALLAN Marjorie Townsley 66 Clive * ANDERSON Margaret Isobel Epsom * ANGLESEY Grant William 19 Waitara * ARMITAGE Ethel Mary 73 Milford * ARNOLD Melinda Maria Manurewa * ARNOLD Valerie Ellen Papatoetoe * ASHTON Grahame 63 Orakei * BAINBRIDGE Thomas Eric 40 Meadowbank * BALDWIN L Peter 50 Birkenhead * BEAUMONT Earl * BECKETT Desmond 62 Te Puke * BOND Marilyn Edna 48 Blockhouse Bay * BOND Rolain Melville 54 Blockhouse Bay * BREHAUT Ronald Thomas 39 Timaru * BROAD John Phillip (Dr) 51 Hamilton * BROOKS Geraldine Timaru * BROUGH Aubrey Conroy 68 Thames * BUCHANAN Geoffrey 68 Orewa * BUERGI Heinz Avonalde * BURGESS Lindsay Robert 60 Whangarei * BURGESS Rose Eileen 58 Whangarei * BURTON Lorraine 42 Wellington * BUTLER Rae Jeanne 43 Waihi Beach * CAMERON Tangiaho 57 Mt Wellington * CAMPBELL Stuart Donald 22 Whakatane * CARLTON John Barry 46 Otautau * CARLTON Marion Rennie 40 Otautau * CARR Margaret Bell 64 Whangarei * CHADDERTON Bryan Harry Papatoetoe * CHADDERTON Valerie Enid Papatoetoe * CHRISTIANSON Alla Remuera * CHRISTMAS Hugh Francis 58 New Plymouth * CLARK David 60 Mt Wellington * CLARK Irene 75 Belmont * CLARK Iris 65 Takanini * CLARK William Henry 67 Takanini * COCKRILL Joan * COLBRAN Yvonne Louise 45 Invercargill * COLBRAN Cyril Bernhard 49 Invercargill * COLE John Wright 124 Westmere * COPAS Jean Ann 46 Hawkes Bay * COPSEY Audrey Joy 55 Pukekohe * COREY Constance (Dr) 46 Epsom * CRABTREE Mary Alison Takapuna * CRABTREE Norman David 72 Takapuna * DAHL Marie Patricia 57 Wellington * DAWSON Peter Maissie 50 Piopio * DEAN Kay 22 Reporoa * DEBBAGE Florence Daisy Rotorua * DELMAGE N.V * DUKE Athol David 18 Epsom * DYKZEUL Herman Maria Douglas Wiri * DYKZEUL Johannes Jacobs 30 Morrinsville * EAGLES G * EDWARDS Elizabeth Jane 30 Naenae * EDWARDS Miriam Ponsonby * EMMETT Cecilia Campbell 62 Te Awamutu * EMMETT John Barnham Te Awamutu * FROST Barle Sandringham * GALLAGHER Alfred James Remuera * GALLAGHER Elsie Thelma Remuera * GIBBS Bryn 78 Wellington * GOLLAND Pamela Margaret Bucklands Beach * GOSLING Violet 60 Opotiki * GULLEVER Richard Kawerau * HANSEN Marlene Anne Picton * HARRIS Hazel Phoebe 60 Hamilton * HARRISON Annie 50 Takapuna * HARRISON Muriel Florence 78 Campbells Bay * HARTLEY James Follett 36 Otorohanga * HARTY Myra Pearl 82 Devonport * HILL Eileen 73 Lower Hutt * HILL Gordon Alexander Mission Bay * HOLLOWAY Jean Marie 63 Glenfield * HOLTHAM Bryan Ernest 35 Invercargill * HOTSON Roy Henry 58 Tuakau * HOUGHTON John 39 Dunedin * HOWARTH Bart Ralph 31 Tauranga * HOWARTH Kathleen Maureen 47 Forest Hill * HOWARTH Peter 52 Forest Hill * HUGHES Stephen 32 Bucklands Beach * HUMPHREY Mildred 69 Orewa * HYNDMAN Thomas William 60 Blockhouse Bay * JARVIS Nicholas Dunstan 43 Glenfield * JENKINS Evelyn Lois Birkenhead * JENNINGS Charles Ivory 44 Taradale * KARL Kathline 61 Ellerslie * KEARNEY Denis 40 Hillsborough * KEITH John Edgar 39 Whangarei * KENDON Nancy Phyllis 67 Howick * KERR Betty New Lynn * KERR Francis Ronald New Lynn * KERR Geoffrey Ian Hamilton 21 Wanganui * KILSBY Anthony John 44 Levin * KILSBY Geoffrey Michael 35 Levin * KING Nancy 62 Russell * KIRK Donald Clive Te Kuiti * LANVIN James Francis 58 Howick * LARSEN Olaf William Raetihi * LING Alison Louise 60 Titirangi * LOCHER Urs 29 Kelston * LOMAX B Kawerau * LOUGHNAN Charles Henry 66 Tauranga * LOUGHNAN Patrick Louis 61 Tauranga * MacDONALD Shirley Jane 35 Palmerston North * MacKENZIE John 62 Manurewa * MADGEWICK Eudora Emily Whangaparoa * MANLEY David Victor 37 Cambridge * MANN Dorothy Maude 49 Te Atatu * MARSDEN Dorothy Tokoroa * MARSDEN Joseph Alan 45 Tokoroa * MARTIN Sally 65 Blockhouse Bay * MASKELYNE Trevor John 26 New Plymouth * MASON R * MATHEWS Aoxautere 60 Palmerston * MAYNARD Olive Mytle 54 Thames * MAYNARD William John Thames * McKENDRY Richard John 33 Wellington * McKENZIE Margaret Joyce 62 Napier * McMILLAN John Bruce 64 Gisborne * McMILLAN Melba Pearl 63 Gisborne * McNAMARA Bernard Joseph Pauanui * McNEIL Eric Onehunga * MITCHELL Mark Geoffrey 17 Lower Hutt * MULGREW Peter David 52 Parnell * MUNRO Ross 34 Otorohanga * MURRAY Murray 33 Mataura * NICHOLSON Christine Margaret 26 Christchurch * O’CONNOR Ian John 41 Timaru * OLIVER Mervyn John 65 Palmerston North * PALMER David Lloyd 31 Stanmore Bay * PALMER Edward James 63 Tauranga * PALMER Gary Kent 29 Tauranga * PATERSON Ethel Mary 54 Onehunga * PATERSON Linda Jan 22 Onehunga * PAYKELL Nola Minchin Devonport * PAYNE Alfred Murray 34 Remuera * PEACOCKE Marjorie Ethol Glenfield * PETHERS Carla 49 Takapuna * PLUMMER Alexander Francis 85 Pakuranga * PLUMMER Hilda Francis 52 Hamilton * POTTER Michael Arthur 53 Whangaparoa * PRICE Irene 86 Sandringham * PRICE Beverley (Daughter) Sandringham * PRIDMORE Joy Agnes 40 Levin * RAWLINS Valgria 76 Mt Eden * REVELL Basil Halvor 52 Waiwera * REVELL Geraldine 60 Waiwera * RICHMOND Pamela Gaye 24 Mt Eden * ROBB Helen (Lady) Remuera * ROBERTS Allison Meryle 46 Wellington * ROBERTS Michael Seaver 47 Wellington * ROBINSON Betty Estell 36 Pariate * RUDEN Karl 79 Mission Bay * SCOTT Mary Theresa 40 Dunedin * SMITH Betty Louise 46 Whangarei * SMYTHE Henry Howard 55 Thames * STEVENSON Anthony James Picton * STEWART Donald Mathew 35 Birkenhead * STOKES Alan Maxwell 51 Pakuranga * STOREY Phyllis May 58 Mt Wellington * TANTON Peter Alec 60 Whangaparoa * TAYLOR Douglas Clement Frank 56 Whangarei * THOMAS Roy Pearce Tauranga * THOMAS Walter Daniel 69 Whangaparoa * TREMAIN Floss Taupo * TREMAIN Robert David 60 Taupo * TRINDER Elaine 26 Epsom * WARD Henry 58 Henderson * WARD Valerie 57 Henderson * WATSON Isobel 65 Mt Albert * WATSON Kathleen 64 Wellington * WEBB Alfred William Waitoa * WILLIAMS Jan 60 Havelock North * WILLIAMS Janet Challis 70 Hastings * WILLIAMS Leonard Heathcote 60 Havelock North * WOOD Barbara Annie 66 Kiwitea * WOOD Irvine Kirkham 72 Kiritea * WORTH Linda 74 Epsom * ZOLL Otto 46 New Lynn * FLIGHT CREW: ALL FROM AUCKLAND * BENNETT David John Senior Flight Steward * BROOKS Gordon Barrett Flight Engineer * CARR-SMITH Elizabeth Mary Stewardess * CASSIN Gregory Mark First Officer * CATER Martin John Flight Steward * COLLINS Martin John Purser * COLLINS Thomas James Captain * FINLAY Michael James Senior Flight Steward * KEENAN Dianne Stewardess * LEWIS James Charles Fight Steward * LUCAS Graham Neville First Officer * MARINOVIC Suzanne Margaret Stewardess * MAXWELL Bruce Rhodes Flight Steward * MOLONEY Nicholas John Flight Engineer * MORRISON Katrina Mary Stewardess * McPHERSON Roy William Chief Purser * SCOTT Russell Morrison Purser * SICKLEMORE David Brian Flight Steward * SIMMONS Stephen George Flight Steward * WOLFERT Marie-Therese Stewardess