In paragraph 41 and following paragraphs there is reference to "what
happened at the airline headquarters at Auckland when the occurrence of
the disaster became first suspected and then known". It is explained
that the navigation section became aware of the fact that when the
McMurdo waypoint co-ordinates were corrected in November 1979 the
movement was not one of 2.1 miles within the vicinity of Williams Field
but a distance of 27 miles from longitude 164° 48' E; and that "by 30
November the occurrence of this mistake over the co-ordinates was known
not only to the Flight Operations Division but also to the management of
the airline. In particular it had been reported to the Chief Executive
of Air New Zealand, Mr. M.R. Davis". At that point there follows the
serious allegation in paragraph 45 already cited--
"The reaction of the chief executive was immediate. He determined
that no word of this incredible blunder was to become publicly
known."
On the face of it the unqualified idea expressed in that sentence is
that Mr. Davis had decided to suppress from everybody outside the
airline all information about the changed flight track. But if that
meaning were intended it has been greatly modified in paragraph 48.
There it is said--
"It was inevitable that these facts would become known. Perhaps the
chief executive had only decided to prevent adverse publicity in
the meantime, knowing that the mistake over the co-ordinates must
in the end be discovered."
Of course if the decision were merely "to prevent adverse publicity in
the meantime" then such an attitude could not in any way be consistent
with an attempt "orchestrated" by Mr. Davis to hid from official
scrutiny what finally was held by the Commissioner in paragraph 393 to
be "the single dominant and effective cause of the disaster". Despite
that, paragraph 48 goes on to say this:
"This silence over the changing of the co-ordinates and the failure
to tell the air crew was a strategy which succeeded to a very
considerable degree. The chief inspector discovered these facts
after he had returned from Antarctica on or about 11 December
1979. In his report, which was published in June 1980, the chief
inspector referred to what he termed the 'error' in the McMurdo
destination point, and the fact that it had been corrected a matter
of hours before the flight left Auckland."
It is difficult to understand why the Commissioner considered "this
silence over the changing of the co-ordinates and the failure to tell
the air crew" had been "a strategy which succeeded to a very
considerable degree". The information had been given to the chief
inspector immediately on his return from Antarctica. That much is
acknowledged in the two sentences that follow. It becomes apparent,
however, that this was criticized not because the information had been
kept away from those to whom it most certainly had to be given, those
charged with the important responsibility of inquiring into the causes
of the disaster. Mr. Davis was criticized for nothing more than his
failure to release the material to the outside world. That is made plain
by a subsequent statement towards the end of the Report which leads on
to the very severe pronouncement in paragraph 377 that the Commissioner
had been obliged to listen to "a predetermined plan of deception ... an
orchestrated litany of lies". The relevant passage is in paragraph 374:
"The fact that the navigation course of the aircraft had been
altered in the computer had been disclosed by the chief inspector
in his report dated 31 May 1980, 6 months after the disaster. But
it was not until the Commission of Inquiry began sitting that the
airline publicly admitted that this had occurred."
The effect of the absence of general publicity that the information was
given rather than its ready provision by the airline to Mr. Chippindale
on the day after his return from the crash site is described in the
remaining portion of paragraph 48 which continues in the following way:
"Then the chief inspector went on to say in his report (paragraph
2.5):
'The error had been discovered two flights earlier but neither crew
of the previous flight or that of the accident flight were advised
of the error by the flight despatcher prior to their departure.'
The chief inspector did not make it clear, however, that the
computer flight path of TE 901 had been altered before the flight,
and that the alteration had not been notified to the air crew. Had
that fact been disclosed in the chief inspector's report then the
publicity attending the report would undoubtedly have been
differently aligned ... the news blackout imposed by the chief
executive was very successful. It was not until the hearings of
this Commission that the real magnitude of the mistake by Flight
Operations was publicly revealed."
Concerning that last part of paragraph 48 it seems that the
Commissioner's remark immediately following the extract from paragraph
2.5 is inaccurate. It appears to suggest either that the chief inspector
was unaware of the fact that the alteration to the co-ordinates "had not
been notified to the air crew"; or that if he had been made aware of
that fact then he had failed to bring it to public attention in his
report as the next sentence suggests. But Mr. Chippindale was both aware
of all this and he said so. In paragraph 1.17.1 he explicitly stated:
"This error was not corrected in the computer until the day before
the flight. Although it was intended that it be drawn to the
attention of the previous crew, immediately prior to their
departure this was not done, _nor was it mentioned during the
pre-flight dispatch planning for the crew of the accident flight_".
(Emphasis added.)
The "pre-flight dispatch planning" mentioned in those last words was the
occasion of final briefing of the aircrew immediately before the
aircraft left Auckland on the morning of 28th November 1981.
A different comment upon paragraph 48 is central in this part of the
case. It is very hard to understand why the chief executive officer of
this airline should have had any duty to pass on for debate and public
prejudgment the same material that in accord with his responsibility had
been properly and immediately placed before the appointed official
required and well equipped to assess it.
"Irrelevant" Documents
At the beginning of this judgment a different aspect of paragraph 45 is
explained by contrast with the following paragraph 46 which correctly
summarizes instructions given by Mr Davis for the disposal of surplus
copies of documents lest they be leaked to the news media. In paragraph
46 it is explained by the Commissioner that "his instructions were that
_only copies of existing documents were to be destroyed_. He said that
he did not want any surplus document to remain at large in case its
contents were released to the news media by some employee of the
airline. The chief executive insisted that his instructions were that
all documents of relevance were to be retained on the single file"
(emphasis added). There was no evidence before the Royal Commission to
any contrary effect. But in the preceding paragraph a different
impression is given. The relevant part of paragraph 45 reads--
"He directed that all documents relating to Antarctic flights, and
to this flight in particular, were to be collected and impounded.
They were all to be put on one single file which would remain in
strict custody. Of these documents"--
that is, _all_ documents relating to the Antarctic flights--the sentence
continues:
"all those which were not directly relevant were to be destroyed.
They were to be put forthwith through the company's shredder."
Then in paragraph 54 the actual instruction is taken into a further
dimension where it is described as "this direction on the part of the
chief executive for the destruction of 'irrelevant documents'". And one
serious complaint made by the applicants about the Royal Commission
Report is that what could be an understandable direction for the
_retention_ of one copy on a master file _of all relevant documents_ has
become an unacceptable instruction that _irrelevant documents_ (related
to the Antarctic flights nonetheless) _should be destroyed_. We think
the complaint is justified.
At the same early stage of the Report the Commissioner gave his
attention to the question as to what if anything was done about the
suppression of documentary evidence. He said in paragraph 52:
"As will be explained later, there was at least one group of
documents which certainly were in the possession of the airline as
from the day following the disaster, and which have never been seen
since. I am referring here to the flight briefing documents of
First Officer Cassin.... (He) had left his briefing documents at
home. They were recovered from his home on the day after the
disaster by an employee of the airline. As I say, they have never
been seen since."
In the following paragraph 53 he observed--"If the explanation of the
chief executive is to be accepted, then in the opinion of someone the
briefing documents of First Officer Cassin, the co-pilot, were thought
to be irrelevant to the disaster"; and in paragraph 54--"it follows that
this direction on the part of the chief executive for the destruction of
'irrelevant documents' was one of the most remarkable executive
decisions ever to have been made in the corporation affairs of a large
New Zealand company".
Those remarks require some brief comment. It must be explained that the
"employee of the airline" mentioned at the end of paragraph 52 was
Captain Crosbie. It is true that he was "an employee of the airline" but
he did not go to the home of First Officer Cassin in that capacity. He
had been asked by the Airline Pilots Association, the group which
throughout the inquiry had very properly been concerned to protect the
interests of the two deceased pilots, to act on their behalf for the
purpose of bringing immediate aid and comfort to the two widows. His
evidence was to the effect that he had gone to each of the homes for
that purpose; that sometime later a member of Mrs Cassin's family had
invited him to take away a box containing such items as flight manuals;
and he said he had done no more than that. He flatly denied taking any
flight documents. But even if he had, the alleged conspiracy has always
been limited in the Royal Commission Report to the executive pilots and
other officers in the management area. It has never been suggested that
it had extended as well to the airline pilots. As may be expected,
throughout both investigations they have done their conscientious best
to protect the valued reputations of their deceased colleagues.
There was documentary evidence before the Inquiry to the effect that on
30th November 1979 an in-house committee of Air New Zealand met on the
instruction of Mr Davis for the purpose of deciding how to collect
together all available information relevant to the accident. It seems
that it began its practical work on Monday 3rd December. In that regard
and as an example of the way in which the applicants say the cover-up
allegation could have been answered by those affected they placed
material before this Court which would suggest that the formation of
such a committee is a conventional step taken by an airline when
confronted with any serious disaster, that it was required by this
company's Accident Investigation Procedures Manual, and that this
committee was appointed accordingly. If it had been before the Inquiry
it would have supported the view that Mr Davis had decided the chairman
should not be associated with the flight operations side of Air New
Zealand and for that reason he appointed Mr Watson who had charge of
certain related companies. There is also an affidavit sworn by Captain
Priest who was appointed by the Airline Pilots Association to sit as its
representative on the committee. Taken at its face value it is to the
effect that he took part in the committee's work from the meeting on 3rd
December. In the affidavit he has explained: "My position on that
Committee was an ALPA watchdog--there were two other independent
members"; that as the inquiry progressed "it became apparent that the
committee was amassing a large amount of papers"; and that Mr Watson
then announced that he had been directed by the chief executive to get
all the information onto one file and any surplus disposed of to avoid
information getting into the wrong hands. The affidavit indicates that
it was then agreed by the committee itself that this should be done on
the basis that the master file was to be available to the committee
members at any time and it appears that Captain Priest joined in that
decision. It is not for us to decide what would have been the effect or
significance of all this material if it had been placed before the Royal
Commission but since the conspiracy to deceive theory that is developed
in the Royal Commission Report apparently stems from the instruction
given by Mr Davis clearly the officers so gravely affected were entitled
to be warned in advance and so be given the opportunity to have such
information fairly and properly considered.