The issue of documentary evidence is given extended attention in a
section of the Report headed, "Post-accident conduct of Air New Zealand"
which is exclusively concerned with suggestions of possible items that
might have been withheld from the Inquiry. The discussion is introduced
at paragraph 342 by a statement that "This instruction by the chief
executive for the collection of all Antarctica documents had some
unfortunate repercussions". The observation is then developed by
reference in particular to the work of Captain Gemmell, the technical
flight manager for Air New Zealand, while assisting Mr Chippindale at
the crash site.
Captain Gemmell had received instructions in the early hours of the
morning of 29th November 1979 to travel to McMurdo in order to assist Mr
Chippindale's investigation into the cause of the accident at the scene.
However, by reason of weather conditions it was not possible for him to
be taken by helicopter to the ice slope until 3 p.m. on 2nd December.
Then, clad in protective clothing and roped to mountaineers, he assisted
in a search for the in-flight recording equipment (consisting of the
cockpit voice recorder and the "black box") and the recovery of any
other equipment or documents which might indicate how the accident had
happened.
Three days earlier, at about 8.30 a.m. on the very morning after the
accident, three mountaineer staff members at Scott Base had managed to
get there in order to search for survivors. And Mr Woodford, who was one
of them, has described the scene in a letter received by the Royal
Commissioner during the public hearings. The letter, which is amplified
in a affidavit put before this Court, is set out later in this judgment.
Mr Woodford explained that when he got to the scene he found a black
flight bag with Captain Collins' name printed on it. It was lying open
on the snow and it was empty. Already material in the form of books and
papers that had not been destroyed when the aircraft disintegrated on
impact had been blown by winds over the ice-slope or into crevasses or
covered by drifting snow. He pointed out that although the cockpit voice
recorder had been located quite quickly when he was back at the crash
site with the party from New Zealand on 2nd December the "black box"
could not be found until later that evening after it had been decided to
begin digging systematically for it. It was found buried under snow at a
depth, he said, of 20 to 30 cms.
But although the bag was empty it was suggested at the hearing that
while at McMurdo Captain Gemmell might have "collected a quantity of
documents from the crash site and brought them back to Auckland"; that
only three of the flight documents carried on the aircraft had been
produced to the Royal Commission; that it was "curious" to find that
each favoured the case "which the airline was now attempting to
advance"; and all this against counsel's theory that before Captain
Gemmell had left Auckland on 29th November he was aware of possible
problems associated with the amendment to the destination point
co-ordinates. Captain Gemmell flatly denied having that knowledge while
in the Antarctic; and he rejected totally any suggestion that he had
recovered anything from the site which had not been passed across in
terms of Mr Chippindale's instructions. In that regard he answered two
propositions put to him by the Commissioner (at page 1834) in the
following way:
"Well the suggestion may be made to me in due course that because
of the discovery that Capt Collins did not know of the alteration
in the nav track consequently someone in the co. would have been
instructed to locate whatever documents there were on the crash
site and elsewhere that might throw light on that question. You say
that no such instruction was given to you.... Certainly not.
But it would have been a reasonable instruction would it not.... No
it would not have."