Erebus-inquiry captain quits Air N.Z.

Press, 31 May 1982, Page 2

Erebus-inquiry captain quits Air N.Z.

PA Auckland Captain Gordon Vette, the Air New Zealand pilot whose private investigation of the Mount Erebus crash became a main part of Mr Justice Mahon’s inquiry, left the airline at the week-end.

Captain Vette said that he had resigned because “ever since the inquiry I have felt extremely vulnerable. As a critic of the airline, I suppose it was to. be expected that I would become a casualty;” Captain Vette’s book on the crash and subsequent investigations, is being published for international circulation in September. Late on Friday, he flew his last Boeing 747 flight into Auckland, flight 6A from Sydney. Passengers, who had been tipped off that he was leaving, cheered,as he put the aircraft down.

Captain Vette’s departure from the airline comes seven years before his due retirement date. He has been offered contract work with a number of overseas airlines, and in August will begin flying DClOs between Jakarta and Hong Kong for the Indonesian airline, Garuda, for two months. Of the Erebus disaster, he

said: “1 still do not think the public fully understands what happened, or how correct Mr Justice Mahon's report was.” “I am not leaving the airline with any sense of anger: it is a good airline, with good people. Since the Mahon report, a great many changes for the better have been made.”

Captain Vette joined the airline as an engineering apprentice in 1948. He spent several years as an Air Force pilot before returning to the company, and has since accumulated more than 14,000 flying hours. At one stage, he was invited to become the airline's operations manager but he declined because of his interest in pilot training. Three years ago, he was awarded the British Guild of Air Pilots’ Johnston Trophy for what was described as one of the most remarkable feats of airmanship recorded; flying from Fiji to Auckland in a DCIO as it was becoming dark, he located an American light aircraft which was lost and guided it to a safe landing on Norfolk Island.