Flight plan for crashed DC10 ‘in order’

Press, 26 February 1980, Page 2

Flight plan for crashed DC10 ‘in order’

PA Auckland The navigational information and flight plan for the Air New Zealand DCIO which crashed in the Antarctic was accurate and entirely in order, said the company’s Chief Executive (Mr M. R. Davis) yesterday. He was commenting on information received by an Auckland newspaper from an “authoritative source” which suggested that navigational information fed into the aircraft had been changed from that used by the aircraft which made the two previous Antarctic flights last year. The information was that the v navigational information used on the two previous flights, was, and was known by the pilots to be, not accurate. According to the source, the information used on this final fatal flight was correct.

The question several pilots are asking is whether the captain of the crashed DCIO was told that the navigational co-ordinates had been changed, or whether he, [like previous pilots, assumed they had not, and therefore made “allowances.”

“You are moving into a very highly speculative area,” Mr Davis said yesterday when this proposition was put to him. “I cannot go further than to say that the navigational information on, and flight plan for, the aircraft which crashed was accurate and entirely in order,” he said. Mr Davis said he could not comment on whether a change had been made, to information on the final flight. “To do so would be completely improper in view of the investigation still proceeding," he said.