As to the issue of the waypoint
conveyed during the briefing, both briefing officers said it was nowhere other
than McMurdo Station.
The audio-visual presentation
said it was at the McMurdo Station area.
The simulator was programmed
using a flight plan and was later repositioned to the McMurdo waypoint - and ended
up at the McMurdo Station area.
Captain Simpson’s initial statements were
consistent with a waypoint at McMurdo Station and in one of those statements,
made before ALPA got its hooks into him, he said that he sighted a flight plan
from “previous years flights”. That could only have been the flight plan used
to program the simulator, where the waypoint was at McMurdo Station.
First Officer Gabriel also
sighted a flight plan where the TACAN was “a bit east of the McMurdo position”,
ie McMurdo Station.
That just leaves First Officer
Irvine.
First Officer Irvine was one of
those spoken to by Ron Chippindale shortly after the accident. According to Chippendale,
First Officer Irvine said that he thought the track went direct to McMurdo
Station but down the sound rather than over Ross Island and Erebus. (Macfarlane
p350) Given that the only map available at the briefing did not show the
previous waypoint (Cape Hallett) that was a conclusion that was easy to draw.
In the written statement prepared
for First Officer Irvine by ALPA’s lawyers there is no reference to the waypoint
conveyed during the briefing. (Macfarlane p236) All that is said is that First
Officer Irvine believed that Ross Island would be well out to the left of the
nav track. The position of the waypoint was studiously avoided - but after reading
out his statement, First Officer Irvine was asked a question:
DO I TAKE IT FROM THAT THAT SO
FAR AS YOU WERE CONCERNED YOURSELF YOU DID NOT KNOW THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF
THAT WAYPOINT . . . I COULD NOT HAVE WALKED STRAIGHT TO A MAP AND INDICATE
WHERE THE NAV. TRACK FINISHED. MY UNDERSTANDING WAS THAT WE WOULD FLY INTO THE
AREA OF THE MCMURDO FIELDS. (Transcript p1733)
Obviously, there were no grass
fields - the stenographer made a mistake. But there was an airfield, called
Williams Field. That was the area that First Officer Irvine was referring to,
an area close to McMurdo Station, not over 20 miles west. It should be noted
that First Officer Irvine would have heard, from the audiotape, the following
words: “Enter NZAA then 78S/167E this being the approximate coordinates of
McMurdo Station.” 167E was slightly to the east of McMurdo Station, by the airfield.
I would venture to suggest that
First Officer Irvine’s story never changed. It was ‘down the sound, with Ross
Island to the left, direct to the McMurdo Station area”. That’s what he said to
Chippindale and that’s what he said, eventually, in his evidence. That’s also
what he would have said to ALPA’s
lawyers, but what came out: ‘down the sound, with Ross Island to the left’. That
was only half the truth, being the half that suited ALPA.