The following paragraphs of the report are attacked for their references
to this senior officer:
352. 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.
353. After the evidence given before the Commission had concluded,
I gave some thought to the matters just mentioned. I knew that the
responsibility for recovering all property on the crash site lay
exclusively with the New Zealand Police Force, and that they had
grid-searched the entire site. All property recovered had been
placed in a large store at McMurdo Base, which was padlocked, and
access to the shed was only possible through a senior sergeant of
Police. I asked counsel assisting the Commission to make inquiries
about the flight bags which had been located on the site but which
had not been returned to Mrs Collins or Mrs Cassin.
354. The Royal New Zealand Air Force helicopter pilot who flew the
property from the crash site to McMurdo remembered either one or
two crew flight bags being placed aboard his helicopter, and he
said that they were then flown by him to McMurdo. This was
independently confirmed by the loadmaster of the helicopter, who
recollected seeing the flight bags. The senior sergeant of Police
in charge of the McMurdo store was spoken to, and he recollected
either one or two flight bags among other property awaiting packing
for return to New Zealand. He said that personnel from Air New
Zealand had access to the store, as well as the chief inspector,
and the senior sergeant said that he thought that he had given the
flight bags to the chief inspector and that the chief inspector was
the sole person to whom he had released any property. The chief
inspector was then interviewed on 11 December 1980 by telephone,
being at that time in Australia, but he said that no flight bags
were ever handed to him.
...