DC10 crew 'did not know what they had hit’

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 3

DC10 crew 'did not know what they had hit’

DC 10 CRASH inquiry

PA Auckland The crew of the Air New Zealand DCIO which ploughed into the side of Mount Erebus did not know what they had hit. That information was revealed yesterday at the inquiry into the Antarctic crash which claimed the lives of the crew and 237 sightseers on November 28 last year.

The Chief Inspector of Air Accidents (Mr R. Chippindale) told the one-man commission, Mr Justice Mahon, that reports from aircraft in the area soon after the crash indicated that the surface and horizon definitions were poor.

White-out conditions, he said, could exist within the normal VMC (visual flight rules) minima and even in the conditions defined by Air New Zealand as the minima for such descents to 6000 feet.

I Mr Chippindale said that iafter the captain’s decision ito climb the aircraft out of the area he and the co-pilot were discussing the most suitable climb-out path when the ground proximity warning system sounded “pull up.” The crew responsed to the alarm without undue hesitation, the flight engineer calling off the heights at 500 and 400 feet indicated on the radio altimeter and the captain calling for “go-round power.” The warning, given 61 seconds before impact, was too late for the action of the crew to have any significant effect on the aircraft level flight path. It was likely, said Mr Chippindale, that as a result of the white-out the “goround” attempt was procedural rather than a desperate attempt to avoid a readily apparent obstacle. Asked by Mr W. D. Baragwanath, counsel assisting the commission, why he had come to that conclusion, Mr Chippindale said, “The voices on the CVR (cockpit recorder) did not indicate there was any readily apparent danger.” His Honour: There is no sign that anyone saw the mount?

Mr Chippindale: That is correct. Earlier, Mr Chippindale told, the hearing that charts carried on the DCIO on the day of the crash were very small scale and not available to the crew until the final pre-flight dispatch planning on the morning of departure. The three “maps” of the area between Cape Hallett and McMurdo Station which were used in the route qualification briefing, all showed a track clear of high ground to the true west of the mountains. So, too, did one of the maps issued on the dav of the flight. “In fact,” said Mr Chippindale, “the flight planned route passed to the east over very high ground instead of over the sea-level ice shelf as portrayed in the briefing ‘maps’.” One track and distance diagram issued at the route qualification briefing showed that the track from Cape Hallett was direct to McMurdo TACAN (a navigational device) but that did not show the location of any topographical feature. The flight plan was printed for each flight from a compute r-stored record which, until the night before the flight, had the longitude for the McMurdo destination point incorrectly entered as 164.48 degrees east. The error in longitude had persisted for 14 months and was not corrected on the sample flight plan shown to the crew of the DC 10 at their preliminary briefing. The error had been discovered two flights earlier but neither the crew of the previous flight nor the crew of flight TE9OI were advised of the error by the flight dispatcher before departure. As all previous flights to McMurdo had approached the area in VMC (flying., visually) earlier crews had not adhered to the flight plan track and so had not detected the error. No evidence was found to suggest that the accident flight crew had been mislead by the error in the flight plan shown to them in the briefing,” said Mr Chippindale.

There were also misconceptions among DCIO crews about the minimum altitude to which an aircraft was permitted to descend VMC (visually) and the actual topography below the flight plan track from Cape Hallett to McMurdo.

Some thought it was a matter for the Captain’s discretion as to how low the aircraft could be flown.

Weather reports received by TE9OI in the Antarctic gave no explanation of the horizon or surface definition terms in the operator’s route qualifications briefing or pre-flight dispatch planning. “There was only a passing reference to white-out conditions,” said Mr Chippendale.

He described how the DCIO descended to a lower a.iitude through a hole in the cloud as it neared its turning point. The captain had been advised that the visibility below the cloud, which was over Ross Island, was 40 miles.

“This descent,” said Mr Chippindale, “was made des-

pite the safety requirement to maintain a minimum sector altitude of 16,000 ft until over the McMurdo TACAN and to descend below that height only in a specified sector and in weather conditions of 20-kilometre visibility and no snow showers and after contacting the radar controller.” In spite of the previous company requirement for radar monitoring of the descent, the air traffic control centre at McMurdo had not been given an opportunity to study the altitude and area limitations imposed by Air New Zealand for any of its aircraft descents in the area, said Mr Chippindale. Answering further questions, he said he thought that information might have been sent to the United States but it was not available at McMurdo Station. .

When flight TE9OI asked for clearance for a descent from 10,000 ft to 2000 ft on a heading of 180 degrees grid (towards true north) and to proceed to fly to McMurdo visually, there was ho reason for the staff of the air traffic control centre to question this. "It was from a reported position to the true north of Ross Island and therefore the descent would take the aircraft back out over the sea-level ice,” Mr Chippindale said.

The flight had confirmed it would fly visually inbound to McMurdo, he said. he hearing yesterday was adjourned until Monday soon after counsel for the passengers’ consortium. Mr C. M. Nicholson, Q.C., began cross-examining Mr Chippindale.