Labour seeks probe of Erebus affair

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 4

Labour seeks probe of Erebus affair

PA Wellington The Labour Party yesterday called for a select, expert committee to be established to investigate whether criminal charges should be laid in relation to matters arising from the Mount Erebus disaster.

The party’s spokesman on justice, Mr F. D. O’Flynn, Q.C., said that the committee should consist at least of an experienced Crown prosecutor and an aviation expert from Britain or the United States.

Although a similar investigation had already been mounted by the police, they had “not been properly equipped for such a task in a complex case like this, involving technical evidence and a knowledge of accepted aviation procedures.” The committee, which could include a second expert and a second lawyer, should report to the SolicitorGeneral, recommending prosecution “whenever there is substantial evidence

against any person even if they are left in doubt whether a conviction could be obtained." Convictions would be decided by a jury unless it was directed not to convict.

He could see no other way in which the controversy could be cleared up. The public would accept the conclusions of a carefully selected and neutral committee and would also accept the verdict of a jury. The "welter of political comment and legal argument” which had continued since the Court of Appeal’s decision on the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the disaster had "left the public thoroughly confused. “It has also further damaged the reputation of our legal system, still shaken by the fiasco of the Thomas affair and its inept and contradictory finale.” There had been no challenge to the central conclusion reached by Mr Justice Mahon, the commissioner in the Erebus inquiry, that “. . .

the dominant'and effective cause of the disaster was the mistake made by those airline officials who programmed the aircraft to fly directly at Mount Erebus and omitted to tell the aircrew.”

This conclusion had not been attacked before the Court of Appeal and Air New Zealand's new board of directors should say plainly that it accepted the conclusion. The board should also conduct an internal inquiry to make sure that such mistakes could not be made again and “tell the public of measures taken to avoid such blunders in future." Mr O'Flynn said.

Mr Justice Mahon s conclusion about the cause of the crash was "beyond any question ... while the allegations about new ‘evidence’, documentary or otherwise, all seem to relate to the question of a cover-up. That should now be speedily investigated in the way I have suggested.”