Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster: C.A. 95/81New Zealand. Court of Appeal
History
Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster: C.A. 95/81
New Zealand. Court of Appeal
Air New Zealand; Aircraft accidents; New Zealand. Royal Commission to Inquire into the Crash on Mount Erebus, Antarctica, of a DC10 Aircraft Operated by Air New Zealand Limited
"... plainly kept this significant fact to himself, (he) was to be
the arbiter of which documents were relevant. The opportunity was
plainly open for Captain Gemmell to comply with the chief
executive's instructions to collect all documents relevant to this
flight, wherever they might be found, and to hand them over to the
airline management."
The next sentence of that paragraph contains the finding already
mentioned:
"However, there is not sufficient evidence to justify any finding
on my part that Captain Gemmell recovered documents from Antarctica
which were relevant to the fatal flight, and which he did not
account for to the proper authorities."
At the conclusion of this section of the Report the Commissioner said
that he could "quite understand the difficulty in recovering loose
documents from this desolate mountain side, although the heavy atlas",
he said, "was not in this category". But he stated that an opportunity
had been "created for people in the airline to get rid of documents
which might seem to implicate airline officials as being responsible for
the disaster". And he spoke of all these matters in terms of
"justifiable suspicion".
The condition of Captain Collins' flight bag when it was first seen by
Mr Woodford had already been mentioned. His letter dated 5th December
1980 was written immediately after some cross-examination of Captain
Gemmell had been given widespread publicity and on Monday 8th December
1980 Captain Gemmell was still giving evidence. By then he was under
cross-examination by counsel assisting the Commission and the latter
proceeded to read into the record the text of the letter (Exhibit 266)
which reads:
"Dear Sir,
At the time of the DC10 crash I was employed in Antarctica by
D.S.I.R. as a survival instructor/mountaineer assistant. I was one
of the three mountaineers who made the initial inspection of the
site for survivors. I was also one of the three mountaineers who
accompanied Messrs David Graham (Investigator) Ian Gemmell & Ian
Wood (Air NZ) during their initial inspection of the aircraft.
During the first six days after the accident I was at the crash
site at all times when the site was occupied.
In regard to evidence reported in the Christchurch Press today, 5
Dec 1980, I can state unequivocally that:
(1) Captain Gemmell did not spend any time inspecting the aircraft
without other people being present.
(2) Captain Collins flight bag was found by me the day after the
crash, this being three days before any Air N.Z. personnel or crash
investigators reached the site. My recollection is that it was
empty when I first inspected it. It certainly contained no diaries
or briefing material.
(3) Captain Gemmell did not remove any items from the persons of
deceased lying in the area...."
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account