Pilot’s “Incredible” Action: Counsel Advances Theory

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22952, 21 May 1949, Page 6

Pilot’s “Incredible” Action: Counsel Advances Theory

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 20. The board was confronted with an extraordinary, mystery, and unless the pilot were to be convicted of suicide and multiple murder, any explanation, except the pilot’s deliberate negligence, might account for the disaster, said Mr. IL Ilardie Boys, counsel for the next-ot'-Jdn of the late Commander Bartley, when the inquiry into the ICereru crash on March IS was resumed today.

The first to address the board was Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell, for the Internal Adairs Department and the relatives of two passengers who lost their lives. He said that the only prudent course available to Commander Bartley was to have made a starboard course over the sea from his last reporting point. The inevitable conclusion was that Commander Bartley, who had approached Paraparaumu aerodrome 87 times from the north, took the course he did not in ignorance, but perhaps with the familiarity that bred contempt. Unjustifiable Course Commander Bartley alone was responsible for the course lie followed in his approach to the aerodrome and it was an unjustifiable course. Any deviation bv a pilot from maximum care was negligence. The board might consider whether pilots who had performed deeds of daring and bravery in wartime were best suited to the necessarily humdrum routine of civil flying in peacetime. To turn toward cloud-covered hills, as Commander Bartley did. was a hazardous step of the grossest negligence involving disastrous consequences. The commander of the aircraft took a risk which prudence should have forbidden.

Supporting submissions of the pilot’s negligence were made by Mr. W. E. Leicester, appearing for the relatives of another passenger. Mr. Leicester said he also wished to refer to a matter raised earlier in the inquiry about safeguarding passengers’ effects after the crash. This matter was unlikely to have been raised had not Mr. Cunningham in his opening address suggested legislation to prevent a possible recurrence of looting and pillage in the event of another air crash. The board should consider whether persons who had been branded as pillagers, looters and ghouls might not have been under the impression that the passengers’ luggage and other articles had been abandoned by the police after the bodies were recovered. Unguarded For Two Days Mr. Leicester said the evidence had shown that after the earlier Kaka crash on Mount Ruapehu the police guarded most jealously their control of the wreckage and the area in which it lay, resenting anv intervention by either the civil or military authorities. At the scene, of the Kereru crash into which the board was now inquiring there were nine members of the police force present for three and a half hours, and it was improper that later the passengers’ property was left unguarded for two days with the inevitable result that many persons visited the scene and removed articles. A police sergeant had said what was left behind when the police party left the wreckage was valueless, but that was not for him to decide and the sergeant’s own evidence had inconsistently stated that goods later recovered from various people were of value. With the large number of men available the police should have been able to arrange some control.

"I ask the board to hesitate to brand a large number of people as they have been branded during this inquiry without considering whether they may not have been led to believe that these things had been abandoned by the police as valueless.”

Mr. R. E. Tripe, another counsel for the next-of-kin of passengers, said civil aviation in New Zealand was still in a state of flux. “Like Mahomet’s coffin, it is half-way between heaven and earth.” he declared. The earliest possible clarification and improvement of control was most desirable.' May Not Have Been Pilot’s Fault Mr. R. Hardie Boys said he did not >seek to dispute the responsibility that had rested on Commander Bartley, who was clearly in charge of the aircraft immediately before the disaster. Undoubtedly, the plane at the time of the crash was in cloud which embraced the land features of a height greater than the plane’s altitude. But it did not necessarily follow that it was the pilot’s fault the plane was in that situation, as Mr. Cunningham and other counsel had assumed from the outset.

Mr. Boys referred to the report of an American disaster in which a DC6 crashed with loss of all lives. Autopsies later established that the occupants of the aircraft had been overcome by fumes from the fire estinguishers on board which were released when someone mistakenly presed a button. There had been other mysterious, unexplained disasters in other countries and .in the circumstances of the Kereru’s loss no possibility could be regarded as too fantastic to explain the extraordinary events from 9.42 a.m. onwards.

It was incredible that a pilot with half of Commander Bartley’s experience would deliberately take his plane into such a hazardous area as cloudcovered hills. It was so incredible that it should be at once rejected in favour of another assumption that could be made. US. Accident Recalled The more adjectives and similes other counsel used to describe Commander Bartley’s gross negligence, the more incredible did it become that a pilot would have actijd so stupidly. It could be deduced from the evidence of two witnesses that the plane descended from 3500 feet to its crash altitude of 1500 feet in the course of four miles. That was so greatly in excess of the permitted rates of descent as to suggest misadventure such as had overtaken the American DC6. “What variety of conjecture is not available to offer some possible explanation of the fate of this aircraft?” said Mr. Boys. Mr. D. W. Virtue, for the National Airways Corporation, %aid the existing regulations gave protection against the pillaging of aircraft wreckage and the personal effects of passengers. Mr. Virtue said there were certain discrepancies in the evidence which suggested that the course of the aircraft after leaving its last reporting point might not have been exactly as suggested in the charts submitted to the board. The discovery in the hills during the search for the Kereru of the wreckage of a Ventura lost three years earlier and thought at the time to have crashed in the sea showed the danger of being dogmatic about an assumed course.

There had been no evidence that Commander Bartley had flown negligently against the established visual flight rules. Such imprudence was inconsistent with his accepted prudence up to 9.24 a.m. Training of Ex-R.N.Z.A.F. Pilots

. The training of former. R.N.Z.A.F. pilots who entered the N.A.C, service was thorough, including a six months' conversion course. The pilot was not alive to oiler an explanation of his actions and to convict him of dereliction of duty when the evidence of his flight up to 9.42 a.m. was all in his favour would be a serious thing unless the board was convinced that the full facts warranted a verdict adverse to the pilot. . Mr. W. H. Cunningham, replying for the Air Department, said Commander Bartley apparently preferred not to go out to sea across the controlled flying lane- He, therefore, turned towards the hills and, once in the cloud, apparent-

ly flew further than he realised before making his turn back towards the aerodrome. Probably, when he turned he thought he still had a margin of safety between him and the hills, towards which he had flown after leav ing the Otaki River mouth. Mr. Cunningham appealed to any persons who might still possess articles of value taken from the aircraft wreckage to return them. He said the N.A.C. had not discharged its responsibility of protecting the property of passengers.The board then adjourned to consider its report which will be presented to the Minister in charge of aviation, Mr, F, Jones... . . ,