Air N.Z. briefings ‘too far ahead’

Press, 16 August 1980, Page 3

Air N.Z. briefings ‘too far ahead’

PA Auckland The inquiry into the DCIO Antarctic’ crash was told yesterday that Air New Zealand pilots should have been given flight information closer to take-off time.

Mr R. B. Thomson, superintendent of the Antarctic Division of the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research, said there . were constant changes in operations staff at Antarctica. Changes in radio frequencies were often made at short notice.

Because of this, he believed flight crew would not be updated on even the possibility of changes in frequencies or ( procedure. He believed this was best!

|accomplished at a briefing, but there was a danger of giving the briefing too far ahead of the flight because of the need for regular updating. He believed briefings should be held at least three days before departure. Mr,. Thomson said that in 1977 he' suggested that Air New- Zealand pilots .attend a briefing on Antarctic, flights at the United - States Antarctic Support Force headquarters at Christchurch. ; ; Told that the Americans had not made the briefing a condition of civil flights and that Air New Zealand considered its own briefings were superior, Mr Thomson said he had no reason to disagree, but said that there could be other opinions on that. . Mr Thomson said, he had not attended a pilot briefing at the Support Force headquarters, but had attended dozens of flight briefings while in Antarctica.

He said he concurred with several points made by the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents (Mr R. Chippindale) in his critcism of Air New Zealand Antarctic flight briefingOn July 29, this year, he had spoken to the United ■States deputy director of polar programmes in Washington, D.C., who was a former commander of the Support Fores,

The official had assured him that most of Mr Chippindale's criticicisms would have been covered in a Support Force briefing. Cross-examination about the route taken by the aircraft led to a clash between Mr Justice Mahon and Mr David Williams, counsel for Air New Zealand. Mr Thomson maintained that while the DCIO followed on its way south a different track from that of military aircraft, this was not immediately apparent to air traffic controllers at McMurdo Station who expected the aircraft to arrive on the) military track, to the west of Mount Erebus.

At this point, his Honour intervened to ask Mr Thomson if the controllers’ belief was reinforced because former airline flights had followed the military track. Mr Thomson: Precisely.

Mr Williams objected to his- Honour’s question. The witness was mature and responsible enough to handle the questioning, he said.

He asked if crossexamining could follow the traditional way. There had been other interventions at critical stages during crossexamination, he said. His Honour said: “I am quite unmoved. I will intervene when I see fit.” Later, Mr Thomson acknowledged that there was cause to believe that some Americans at McMurdo Station were aware that the flight path of the aircraft was over Mount Erebus. This was evident in evidence given earlier by an R.N.Z.A.F. helicopter crewman, Sergeant David Shanks, who was in the McMurdo area at the time.

Sergeant Shanks had said that a Lieutenant Commander Bufort, and' the pilot of a United States military aircraft, suggested searching in the area, where, the wreckage was found because this lay on the flight track. __

DC 10 CRASH INQUIRY