"As to the ring-binder notebook, it had been returned to Mrs Collins by an employee of the airline, but all the pages of the notebook were missing. Captain Gemmell was asked about this in evidence. He suggested that the pages might have been removed because they had been damaged by kerosene. However, the ring-binder notebook itself, which was produced at the hearing, was entirely undamaged." (Emphasis added.)
It is clear that the Commissioner has wrongly attributed the explanation given by Captain Crosbie concerning the removal of missing pages to Captain Gemmell. The latter was never questioned at all about possible reasons for the missing pages. The fifth and sixth respondents have formally acknowledged that the reference to Captain Gemmell in that paragraph is wrong.
Contents of Flight Bags
It has been explained that the Commissioner was satisfied that Captain Collins had used the New Zealand Atlas to plot the last leg of the flight path from Cape Hallett to McMurdo and may have used a chart of his own for the same purpose. In addition there were his briefing documents and those received by First Officer Cassin. Those received by the latter have been discussed. The Commissioner held that they had not been taken aboard the aircraft. But he was concerned with whatever else may have been carried onto the DC10 by First Officer Cassin in his flight bag; and about the contents of Captain Collin's flight bag which he believed would include the atlas and briefing documents. In fact the only evidence concerning the possible survival of the first officer's flight bag, let alone its contents, was a name-tag which finally reached Mrs Cassin through Captain Crosbie, the welfare representative. Since there is no description of the contents and it has been held that the briefing material was left behind anyway, the fate of the bag itself would seem to be immaterial.
On the other hand it is known that after the accident Captain Collins' bag was seen on Mt. Erebus. The matter has been mentioned. The bag did not reach his widow as it would normally have done if it had been received and returned to New Zealand and this fact is the focus of attention in the Royal Commission report.
In order to examine the matter it will be remembered that the mountaineer, Mr Woodford, arrived by helicopter searching for survivors on the morning of 29th November. In the letter he sent to the Royal Commission he said he found the bag then and: "My recollection is that it was empty when I first inspected it. It certainly contained no diaries or briefing material." Apparently the bag had been thrown from the disintegrating aircraft at the time of impact and its contents lost in the snow or scattered by winds before the arrival of the mountaineers. But whatever the reason for their absence from the bag it is the contents that matter in this case—not the flight bag itself. And according to the letter they had already disappeared from the bag three days before the New Zealand party arrived there. So like the bag of First Officer Cassin it might be thought that this item too was immaterial. However, it is discussed by the Commissioner in the following way.
First there is listed a series of documents "which clearly had been carried in the flight bag of Captain Collins" and which had not been recovered. The items comprise the New Zealand Atlas and a chart; the briefing documents; and the ring-binder notebook. Those three items have been mentioned. And finally a topographical map issued on the morning of the flight. The suggested significance of these various documents is explained by reference to the view of counsel for the Airline Pilots Association that they "would have tended to support the proposition that Captain Collins had relied upon the incorrect co-ordinates" (paragraph 344).
There follows reference to the blue envelope and the matter of Captain Eden after which paragraph 349 speaks of the flight bag:
"Then, as the Inquiry proceeded, there were other queries raised. It seemed that Captain Collins' flight bag had been discovered on the crash site. It was a bag in which he was known to have carried all his flight documents. It was said to have been empty when found, a fact which was incidentally confirmed by a mountaineer who had seen the flight bag before Captain Gemmell arrived at the crash site. The flight bag was rectangular, and constructed of either hard plastic or leather, and had the name of Captain Collins stamped on it in gold letters. It was evidently undamaged."
There is mention as well of First Officer Cassin's flight bag and the ring-binder notebook (both of which matters have now been discussed) and then it is said in paragraph 353 that after the taking of evidence the Commissioner asked counsel assisting the Commission to make inquiries about the two flight bags "which had been located on the site but which had not been returned to Mrs Collins or Mrs Cassin".