Mr Mahon would do inquiry differently today

Press, 21 June 1985, Page 24

Mr Mahon would do inquiry differently today

PA Auckland The Mount Erebus air crash disaster commissioner, Mr Peter Mahon, has said he would have opened avenues of investigation he had ordered closed if he were able to hold the inquiry again. The former High Court judge and one-man Royal Commission of inquiry into the Air New Zealand DCIO disaster made the comment after receiving an award by

the world body of airline pilots for his work in the inquiry. It is the first time the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association has made an award to a non-pilot. Mr Mahon said he always knew he would make himself unpopular if he found against the airline. Asked if he would conduct the inquiry differently today, Mr Mahon said, “I would do it differently. I would open up avenues of inquiry which I gave instructions should be closed.” Mr Mahon said there were two ways Air New Zealand could have reacted to the inquiry. One was the American way. The other was the English way, which was to “come clean” from the outset. “Management in this case adopted the American system and they came to grief,” he said. The award cited Mr Mahon’s outstanding work which led him to produce findings which exonerated the flight crew from any responsibility for the accident