Report brings relief to pilot’s family

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 1

Report brings relief to pilot’s family

PA Rotorua The clearing of Captain T. J. Collins by the Royal Commission from any blame in the Mount Erebus disaster came as a golden wedding anniversary present for his parents. Speaking from their Rotorua home yesterday Mr and Mrs A. D. Collins told of their relief that their dead son had finally been exonerated.

“It proves our faith in Jim was justified. All we wanted was to see his name cleared,” said Mr Collins.

The couple celebrated their fiftieth anniversary at Auckland last week with family members, including the wife and four

daughters of Captain Collins.

“Jim was going to organise the party, but of course he never had the chance. But really, after 18 months of uncertainty the report has been a great relief,” said Mrs Collins. The Collins’ lack of knowledge of airline procedure had left a nagging doubt that perhaps their son had been responsible for the crash.

“It was possible he could have made an error — we did not think he would have but it was always a possibility,” said Mr Collins.

“We knew nothing about the Antarctic so we

had no idea what might have happened, but the day after the crash a few statements were made which made us think that something was not 100 per cent right with the flight.” The speculation which followed the crash caused a great deal of hurt within the Collins family. “It was particularly hard on Jim’s children. To think that he could have been partly responsible for all those deaths was a worry to us all,” siaid Mr Collins.

Speculation that pilot error was totally to blame for the crash that took 257 lives was “rotten,” he said.

‘‘Jim’s 10-year-old daughter Philippa came home from school one day upset because some of the other children had said that her daddy had caused the crash.”

Children were only repeating what their parents had said and their parents had been influenced by news media sensationalism, said Mr Collins.

“Huge headlines saying ‘pilot error’ were terrible. People were judging before they had any facts.” The couple said they were not bitter or seeking revenge against Air New Zealand for the crash, but Mrs Collins believed the airline did owe them some sort of apology.

The Collins’ only other son lives in London and Mrs Collins said she would like to “stick Air New Zealand for a trip to see him. “1 feel they owe us that much. They have deprived us of one son through their own carelessness. We do not want revenge but they owe us something.”

Mrs Collins said it had been easy to blame the flight crew for the crash because they had not been able to defend themselves. A senior Air New Zealand pilot, Captain G. Vetty and a lawyer Mr P. J. Davison, had done a tremendous job in clearing their son’s name. “They were so deter-

mined to clear Jim — they were marvellous.” Now that the report is out, the Collins family is determined to put the tragedy behind it. The family’s determination was shown by Captain Collins’ eldest daughter, Kathryn, who sat her final School Certficate examination the day after her father died. “Kath was determined to pass that exam and she did. Her father had helped her study. This has been a rotten experience for the four girls. We hope they can now get over it.

“We are not out for sensation. This is notoriety we did not want.”