Atlas map taken to briefing

Press, 26 August 1980, Page 3

Atlas map taken to briefing

PA Auckland! A man of Captain T. J. Collins’s experience would not have relied on - an atlas map for aircraft navigation, the DCIO crash inquiry was told yesterday. William Keith Amies, navigation services officer for Air New’ Zealand, offered this opinion towards the end of his evidence yesterday. He had been told by Mr J. W. Stewart, counsel for the estate of First Officer Cassin, that Captain Collins had carried the map to the briefing which he attended 20 days before the ill-fated flight. Earlier Mr Amies said six Air New' Zealand flights went to McMurdo.! w'ith an error in the flight plan position because the longitude co-ordinate for McMurdo was wrong, but he would have expected crews to have checked the computer flight plan position - against an independent source. Mt R. Chippindale, the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, had said in his final report that because earlier crews had deviated from the flight plan track in visual conditions they had not detected the error. This was an over-simplification of the position, Mr Amies said. There were at least four inflight checks which could have been done and which should have indicated to them that there was an error in the system. One must consider, he said, -whether the crews of the six flights believed the McMurdo position w'as in the middle of the Ross Sea

or whether they believed it was intended to be McMurdo Station. In the absence of reports of discrepancies (from crew') it was natural for the Air New’ Zealand navigation section to believe that the McMurdo co-ordi-nates in the company flight plan were the same as the published position. As a result of a report made by Captain Simpson, who commanded the November 14, 1979, flight. Captain R. T. Johnson, flight-man-ager, line operations, asked the navigation section to determine whether there w’as anything wrong with- the McMurdo position. The request made no mention of a discrepancy between the incorrect flight plan position and McMurdo Station of 27 nautical miles. If this had been suggested there would have been a detailed investigation of the flight plan co-ordinates. On the basis of the information received the extent of the error was determined as being the equivalent of 2.1 nautical miles. At Captain Johnson’s, request this error was amended which led unknowingly to a correction of 27 nautical miles in the computer flight plan. Mr Amies said he was unaware that?., the error in the computer flight planning programme had been 27 miles until after the accident.

Mr Justice McMahon asked Mr Amies why an aircrew should check figures produced for them by an expert navigator? It w'as. not so much that they ‘‘do not trust us,” Mr

Amies replied, but that information was telexed round the world in a jumble of figures. It became a standard practice to. make checks where ' The need to check co-ordi-nates, track, and distance was written into the manual. To Mr Stewart he said the navigational computer 'systems on DCIO aircraft were capable of doing navigation functions independently and they could cross-check and “cross talk.” These navigation systems had a high degree "of accuracy and they had changed the approach to piloting aircraft, but this did not absolve the need for normal checks by crew’. ! ~Mr Stewart asked the witness if an atlas chart which Captain Collins took with him to the briefing 20 days before the Antarctic flight would have been any use to him in familiarising himself with the area. Mr Amies said the atlas map might have been some use in giving points Of interest but that he was sure that Captain Colliris, with his training as a navigator, would not have relied on such a chart for aircraft navigation. ... ’Mr Amies said, that although he was not directly involved in the initial planning for the Antarctic flights, he did not consider it was unsafe for the final sector of the flight to go directly over Mount Erebus at an altitude of 16,000 feet. On a normal sightseeing flight in good visibility he would not have expected the| computerised route to be i (followed strictly.