Factual Background
In a written synopsis of argument presented before this Court by counsel for Air New Zealand it was said that background matters had to be understood as they were entirely relevant to the complaints made by the applicants in the present proceedings. But that "the Applicants do not propose to canvass any factual matters which fall outside the range of their specified allegations". In regard to that last matter we emphasize again that this case (as counsel well realized) cannot be used to attack the Royal Commission findings as to the cause of the crash. On behalf of the applicants it was made clear nonetheless that their acceptance of the jurisdictional bar to such a challenge in the Courts did not mean and should not be used to draw any inference that they accepted the causation findings themselves (at least in the unqualified form in which they are set down in the Report). It is simply that they do all readily accept as they must that in no sense can these proceedings become an appeal against those findings. It is right to add that throughout the hearing in this Court that attitude has very properly been reflected in the submissions we heard. Thus the conclusions as to the cause of the crash must and do stand.
Late in 1976 Air New Zealand decided to commence a series of non-scheduled sightseeing journeys from New Zealand to the Ross Dependency region and return to this country without a touch-down at any intermediate point. They began with two flights in February 1977. There were four further journeys in October and November 1977, four in November 1978, and three more in November 1979—on 7th, 14th and 21st. The accident flight was to be the fourteenth of the series. In 1977 the designated route was one which used Cape Hallett on the north-eastern point of Victoria Land as the first southern waypoint on the continent itself en route further south either to a point adjacent to the Williams ice landing field (near Scott and McMurdo bases) or alternatively the south magnetic pole. One or other became the southernmost waypoint, the magnetic pole destination being used at the discretion of the pilot if weather conditions made the McMurdo area unsuitable for sightseeing.
Scott and McMurdo bases are located close together at the south-western tip of Ross Island which forms the eastern coast of McMurdo Sound. On the island there are four volcanic mountains including Mt. Erebus, the highest, at 12,450 feet. The Sound itself, which is about 40 miles long by 32 miles wide at the narrowest point, lies between mainland Antarctica and Ross Island and for most of the year it is covered with flat sea ice.
The first two flights in February 1977 took place with the necessary approval of the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Transport and after clearance with the United States naval authorities who control the air space in the vicinity of McMurdo Station. Those flights followed a computer-controlled flight track to Cape Hallett thence directly over Ross Island and Mt. Erebus at the stipulated minimum height of 16,000 feet to the McMurdo waypoint. The co-ordinates of that waypoint had been written correctly into the flight plan as 77° 53' south latitude and 166° 48' east longitude. Three of the pilots who flew to the Antarctic in November 1977 were available to give evidence and, like the two earlier pilots, they agreed that at that time the flight plan followed a track from Cape Hallett to the McMurdo area which passed virtually overhead Mt. Erebus. However then and on subsequent occasions the sightseeing aircraft to the McMurdo area arrived in the general vicinity of Cape Hallett to find clear air further on and took the opportunity of visual meteorological conditions to veer laterally from the direct computer flight track from Cape Hallett by tr
acking to the west along the coast of Victoria Land and eventually down McMurdo Sound over the flat sea ice. Ross Island was thus left to the east while near the head of the Sound the aircraft would turn left in order to fly over Scott and McMurdo bases and in the vicinity of Ross Island so that a view would be obtained of Mt. Erebus and the other three mountains there.
When the decision was made to operate the series of flights to take place at the end of 1977 a change was made with the approval of the Civil Aviation Division to permit flights below 16,000 feet down to 6,000 feet in a specified sector south of Ross Island and subject to such criteria as a cloud base no lower than 7,000 feet, clear visibility for at least 20 miles and descent under ground radar guidance. It has been mentioned that similar criteria applied, officially at least, until the time of the fatal crash. But the written directions were interpreted by some pilots as leaving them with a degree of discretion to go lower in ideal weather conditions.
Then in September 1978 steps were taken to print a flight plan for each Antarctic journey from a record stored in the Air New Zealand ground based planning computer. And it is at this stage that the longitude co-ordinate for the southernmost waypoint was fed into the ground computer as 164° 48' E.
The Flight Track