WEBVTT - The Sightseeing Flight and the Invisible Mountain 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:30.890 Pushkin Air New Zealand Flight nine oh one is flying 0:00:31.010 --> 0:00:36.490 straight towards a mountain. Two hundred and fifty seven people 0:00:36.610 --> 0:00:41.010 are on board, most of them sipping champagne and hearing 0:00:41.130 --> 0:00:45.970 eagerly out of the windows. It's November nineteen seventy nine. 0:00:46.770 --> 0:00:50.970 This is a sightseeing trip to Antarctica. They took off 0:00:51.010 --> 0:00:54.610 from New Zealand this morning. They'll enjoy some views of 0:00:54.850 --> 0:00:59.090 spectacular icy landscapes. If it's not too cloudy, of course, 0:01:00.210 --> 0:01:03.250 then they'll loop around and land back in New Zealand 0:01:03.370 --> 0:01:08.570 in time for dinner. Captain Jim Collins talks to the passengers. 0:01:09.850 --> 0:01:12.050 The cloud cover in the McMurdo area has. 0:01:11.970 --> 0:01:13.850 Increased, although ground. 0:01:13.530 --> 0:01:16.410 Visibility is good. We will be taking advantage of the 0:01:16.530 --> 0:01:20.090 raidar facilities at McMurdo for letdown, which should take us 0:01:20.130 --> 0:01:22.250 below the cloud and give us a view of the 0:01:22.330 --> 0:01:23.250 McMurdo area. 0:01:26.090 --> 0:01:31.450 McMurdo the McMurdo Sound, an inlet between mainland Antarctica and 0:01:31.610 --> 0:01:36.370 Ross Island. There's an American research base at McMurdo with 0:01:36.490 --> 0:01:41.170 a small airstrip on the ice. Captain Collins calls them 0:01:41.170 --> 0:01:44.090 on the radio to check there are no other planes around. 0:01:45.170 --> 0:01:49.290 They assume they'll see him soon flying low over the inlet. 0:01:50.210 --> 0:01:55.850 But Captain Collins isn't flying towards the water of McMurdo Sound. 0:01:56.610 --> 0:02:02.490 He's flying towards a mountain, a twelve thousand foot active 0:02:02.610 --> 0:02:08.730 volcano to be exact. Also in the cockpriit is famed 0:02:08.770 --> 0:02:14.730 and Arctic explorer Peter Mulgrew. He's there to entertain the passengers, 0:02:14.850 --> 0:02:17.370 telling stories and pointing out landmarks. 0:02:18.210 --> 0:02:20.050 This is Peter Mulgrew again, folks. 0:02:20.490 --> 0:02:22.690 I still can't see very much at the moment. Keep 0:02:22.690 --> 0:02:25.130 you informed as soon as I see something that gives 0:02:25.130 --> 0:02:25.850 me a clue. 0:02:25.650 --> 0:02:29.810 As to where we are. Peter Mulgrew can't see where 0:02:29.810 --> 0:02:32.890 they are as Collins takes the plane down to a 0:02:32.930 --> 0:02:36.210 gap in the cloud. But a display in the cockpit 0:02:36.570 --> 0:02:40.050 should tell them where they are. It shows their distance 0:02:40.130 --> 0:02:44.970 to the next pre programmed waypoint in their computerized flight path. 0:02:46.130 --> 0:02:48.490 That morning, the crew got a print out of the 0:02:48.530 --> 0:02:52.530 coordinates for those waypoints, which they manually entered into the 0:02:52.570 --> 0:02:57.010 plane's navigation system. The flight engineer wants to check something. 0:02:57.890 --> 0:03:00.090 Where's Erebus in relation to us at the moment? 0:03:00.890 --> 0:03:06.770 To the left, He's told Erebus that's the twelve thousand 0:03:06.770 --> 0:03:08.050 foot volcano. 0:03:08.650 --> 0:03:11.450 I'm just thinking of any high ground in the area, 0:03:11.570 --> 0:03:11.970 that's all. 0:03:12.930 --> 0:03:17.690 But Mount Erebus isn't to their left, it's straight in 0:03:17.690 --> 0:03:24.250 front of them. Captain Collins keeps descending to fifteen hundred feet. 0:03:25.410 --> 0:03:29.530 The old Antarctic hand Peter Mulgrew, peering through the window, 0:03:29.930 --> 0:03:34.050 sees enough to get his bearings, or so he thinks. 0:03:34.730 --> 0:03:35.410 Ross Island. 0:03:35.490 --> 0:03:40.610 Eh, they've now lost radio contact with the Americans at McMurdo. 0:03:41.530 --> 0:03:43.890 The flight engineer is feeling uneasy. 0:03:44.970 --> 0:03:45.730 I don't like this. 0:03:46.930 --> 0:03:50.610 Captain Collins also seems to sense that something isn't right. 0:03:51.570 --> 0:03:55.210 We're twenty six miles north. We'll have to climb out 0:03:55.290 --> 0:03:55.410 of this. 0:03:56.610 --> 0:04:00.570 Twenty six miles north. That'll be north of the next 0:04:00.770 --> 0:04:06.170 pre programmed waypoint. We'll come back to that, climb out 0:04:06.210 --> 0:04:13.370 of this. We'll come back to that too. The dialogue 0:04:13.410 --> 0:04:19.010 in this cockpit recording will be bitterly debated. But now 0:04:19.170 --> 0:04:24.170 the ground proximity alert is going off. Wood woop, pull up, 0:04:25.090 --> 0:04:26.610 wood whoop, pull up. 0:04:28.330 --> 0:04:29.210 Five hundred food. 0:04:30.370 --> 0:04:34.930 They shouldn't be that low. Maybe it's a false alarm 0:04:34.970 --> 0:04:40.490 four hundred food. Anyway, there's a routine procedure when this alert, 0:04:40.530 --> 0:04:45.730 goes off, boost the engine power and climb. Captain Collins 0:04:46.050 --> 0:04:47.250 doesn't sound concerned. 0:04:48.130 --> 0:04:51.450 Go around power please wood whoop, pull up. 0:04:53.810 --> 0:05:24.890 I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. When 0:05:25.250 --> 0:05:29.050 Jim Collins put his name forward for a sightseeing flight 0:05:29.130 --> 0:05:34.370 to Antarctica, it was more in hope than expectation. Collins 0:05:34.450 --> 0:05:39.570 was experienced and respected by his colleagues. He was cautious, methodical, 0:05:40.090 --> 0:05:46.210 always taking notes, but aged just forty five, he wasn't 0:05:46.290 --> 0:05:49.930 one of the top guys, the senior pilots who were 0:05:49.970 --> 0:05:57.450 also company executives. When Air New Zealand started their sightseeing flights, 0:05:58.130 --> 0:06:03.010 the executive pilots called dibbs. They wanted to see Antarctica too. 0:06:04.250 --> 0:06:06.570 But now the flights had been running for a couple 0:06:06.610 --> 0:06:13.050 of years, ordinary pilots were also getting a turn. Collins 0:06:13.210 --> 0:06:16.490 was thrilled to see his name on the roster. The 0:06:16.610 --> 0:06:19.850 evening before the flight, he sat at home with a 0:06:19.890 --> 0:06:23.810 big map, drawing lines and pointing things out to his 0:06:23.930 --> 0:06:29.930 teenage daughters. In the morning, Colin's wife, Maria waved him 0:06:29.930 --> 0:06:32.330 off with a reminder of her call at the shop 0:06:32.370 --> 0:06:38.930 on the way home. Don't forget the fish, but The 0:06:39.050 --> 0:06:42.930 early evening brought a phone call from Air New Zealand. 0:06:44.130 --> 0:06:48.050 We're just a bit concerned about Jim's flight. We haven't 0:06:48.090 --> 0:06:51.250 heard from him for a while. Are you on your own? 0:06:52.250 --> 0:06:53.490 Will the cutter here? 0:06:54.690 --> 0:06:59.890 Have you got another adult there with you? No, might 0:06:59.930 --> 0:07:05.450 be an idea in that moment, said Maria Collins. Later 0:07:06.810 --> 0:07:13.170 she was struck by cold. At nine o'clock, the television 0:07:13.210 --> 0:07:18.330 news led with the missing plane. By now it would 0:07:18.330 --> 0:07:23.370 be out of fuel. Wherever it was, it wasn't still flying. 0:07:26.770 --> 0:07:30.330 In the early hours of the morning, another phone call 0:07:31.330 --> 0:07:36.730 the Americans had spotted what remained of the plane smudged 0:07:37.010 --> 0:07:46.490 across the frozen slopes of Mount Erebus. Police from New 0:07:46.610 --> 0:07:50.170 Zealand were flown out to help with the cleanup. They 0:07:50.210 --> 0:07:55.410 had no specialist training or experience of Antarctica. One had 0:07:55.490 --> 0:07:59.050 never even seen snow, he recalled. 0:08:00.170 --> 0:08:03.330 My senses were overloaded. All the bodies in the wreckage 0:08:03.650 --> 0:08:07.370 an overpowering smell of kerosene. I almost fell through thin 0:08:07.450 --> 0:08:08.690 ice into a crevise. 0:08:09.770 --> 0:08:15.410 Strewn across the snow or champagne, bodies and money and 0:08:15.650 --> 0:08:22.010 cameras and people's diaries. The policeman couldn't resist taking a 0:08:22.050 --> 0:08:25.090 peek inside. 0:08:24.330 --> 0:08:27.050 One described the trip so far and how beautiful the 0:08:27.050 --> 0:08:31.570 Antarctic was. The last words in the diary were jee, 0:08:31.610 --> 0:08:32.730 it's great to be alive. 0:08:36.010 --> 0:08:42.370 The policeman finds Captain Collins's body and nearby his ringbinder. 0:08:43.770 --> 0:08:49.290 He looks inside that too. It's intact, and the pages 0:08:49.290 --> 0:08:53.650 are filled with what looked like briefing notes. It might 0:08:53.690 --> 0:09:03.970 be important. He carefully seals it in a bag. Jim 0:09:04.050 --> 0:09:09.810 had friends among the executive pilots the company men. Collins 0:09:09.850 --> 0:09:14.170 noticed that when they called on her, they started saying 0:09:14.250 --> 0:09:20.570 things like, of course Jim was too low, or it 0:09:20.650 --> 0:09:26.570 was so unlike Jim to contravene any regulations. Maria says, I. 0:09:26.570 --> 0:09:28.610 Gained the impression that they were trying to break it 0:09:28.650 --> 0:09:31.210 to me gently, that Jim would be hill to blame. 0:09:32.770 --> 0:09:37.610 Then they stopped calling at all. One spelled it out 0:09:37.650 --> 0:09:42.130 as he stood in her doorway, Maria, I won't be 0:09:42.170 --> 0:09:44.970 able to see you anymore. I've got to be with 0:09:45.010 --> 0:09:49.690 the company. Jim had been a groomsman at his wedding, 0:09:53.810 --> 0:09:58.690 but not all of Jim's mentors deserted him. One senior pilot, 0:09:58.770 --> 0:10:02.170 who taught Jim to fly, told Maria. 0:10:02.410 --> 0:10:07.250 This isn't Jim, Maria, this is not Jim's behavior. Something's wrong. 0:10:08.050 --> 0:10:10.050 I'm going to find out. 0:10:11.810 --> 0:10:15.930 Just as Maria Collins had feared. When the Chief Inspector 0:10:16.050 --> 0:10:21.010 of Air Accidents published his investigation report, it left no 0:10:21.250 --> 0:10:25.210 doubt that Jim was to blame. He had contravened the 0:10:25.290 --> 0:10:30.930 regulations flying well below the minimum safe altitude of sixteen 0:10:31.050 --> 0:10:34.850 thousand feet, and he had done so when the visibility 0:10:35.050 --> 0:10:39.330 obviously wasn't good. You could tell that from the transcript 0:10:39.370 --> 0:10:44.130 of the cockpit voice recording. It was damning. We heard 0:10:44.170 --> 0:10:49.330 some of it earlier. Antarctic expert Peter mulgrew, not having 0:10:49.370 --> 0:10:53.770 a clue where they were. At one point, just two 0:10:53.850 --> 0:10:58.890 minutes before impact, a voice says, a bit thick here, Ahbert, 0:11:00.970 --> 0:11:04.130 a bit thick. They must be referring to cloud right. 0:11:05.770 --> 0:11:09.450 The report also mentioned some sort of error with the 0:11:09.530 --> 0:11:14.050 waypoint coordinates, but that had been fixed before Colin's flight, 0:11:14.330 --> 0:11:17.970 and anyway, it didn't matter. If Collins had kept to 0:11:18.010 --> 0:11:24.370 the minimums safe altitude, he wouldn't have crashed, simple as that. Still, 0:11:24.970 --> 0:11:28.850 a disaster this big couldn't be left to the Chief 0:11:28.890 --> 0:11:33.290 Inspector of Air Accidents. There need to be a proper 0:11:33.690 --> 0:11:39.690 formal inquiry with evidence given in public. The government appointed 0:11:39.730 --> 0:11:44.690 a Judge Peter Marn to conduct a Royal commission, with 0:11:44.850 --> 0:11:50.410 technical advice from a distinguished Air Marshal. Marn was no fool. 0:11:51.410 --> 0:11:55.730 He understood that the Chief Inspector's report was convenient for 0:11:55.810 --> 0:12:00.810 the government. Air New Zealand was state owned. If the 0:12:00.850 --> 0:12:05.570 company had screwed up, the government could face expensive claims 0:12:05.610 --> 0:12:11.170 for compensation. But if the pilot's screwed up insurance would 0:12:11.170 --> 0:12:15.650 fit the bill. Marn knew the government hoped hid back 0:12:15.730 --> 0:12:20.170 up the report, and the report did seem convincing. Marn 0:12:20.250 --> 0:12:21.490 later recalled. 0:12:21.850 --> 0:12:25.850 I presumed that after testing the evidence at first hand, 0:12:26.370 --> 0:12:30.450 I would see no difficulty in confirming the Chief Inspector's opinion. 0:12:31.570 --> 0:12:35.810 Still, though, if Jim Collins had known his flight path 0:12:35.850 --> 0:12:40.530 took him straight towards a twelve thousand foot volcano, why 0:12:40.730 --> 0:12:44.650 was he flying at fifteen hundred feet. Maybe it had 0:12:44.650 --> 0:12:48.410 to do with that error in the waypoint coordinates. 0:12:50.570 --> 0:12:54.930 Marn recalls, I had the impression that there might be 0:12:54.970 --> 0:12:57.570 a great deal more to this than was admitted on 0:12:57.610 --> 0:12:58.170 the surface. 0:12:59.970 --> 0:13:05.730 There was cautionary tales will be back after the break 0:13:16.330 --> 0:13:19.450 on a normal flight that goes from A to B. 0:13:20.090 --> 0:13:25.650 Your final waypoint is obvious. It's the destination airport that 0:13:25.770 --> 0:13:28.810 air New Zealand sight seeing flights weren't going to land 0:13:28.850 --> 0:13:31.730 in Antarctica. They were going to see some sights then 0:13:31.810 --> 0:13:35.930 fly back home. So what to choose is the final 0:13:36.050 --> 0:13:40.530 waypoint for their computerized flight path. In a way, it 0:13:40.570 --> 0:13:44.610 didn't matter if visibility was good, they'd just fly around 0:13:44.610 --> 0:13:49.570 for a bit. But the computer needed a waypoint, so 0:13:49.650 --> 0:13:53.890 they picked a radio beacon near the American base at McMurdo. 0:13:54.490 --> 0:13:58.730 It seemed as good a choice as any. Actually it 0:13:58.850 --> 0:14:02.210 was stupid. It meant the flight path went right over 0:14:02.290 --> 0:14:08.370 an active volcano, Mount Erebus. Even stupider when Erebus was 0:14:08.410 --> 0:14:12.570 between the plane and the base, the Americans wouldn't see 0:14:12.610 --> 0:14:15.170 the plane on their radar, and you'd struggle to get 0:14:15.210 --> 0:14:19.210 a connection on the radio. Then the flight path stored 0:14:19.250 --> 0:14:22.210 in the company's computer was changed with a new waypoint 0:14:23.370 --> 0:14:27.810 twenty five miles west, near the end of McMurdo Sound. 0:14:29.410 --> 0:14:33.210 This was much more sensible. Now the flight path took 0:14:33.250 --> 0:14:37.850 you over open water. For over a year, pilots of 0:14:37.890 --> 0:14:42.330 the Antarctic flights got printouts with these sensible new coordinates. 0:14:43.170 --> 0:14:47.730 But the night before Jim Collins flight, the final waypoint 0:14:47.930 --> 0:14:53.650 was shifted back again, back over Mount Erebus, and nobody 0:14:53.850 --> 0:15:04.210 told Jim Collins. The public hearings in Peter Mah's courtroom 0:15:04.410 --> 0:15:10.850 began in July nineteen eighty seven, months after the air 0:15:10.930 --> 0:15:14.450 New Zealand's lawyers told Man that the waypoint change was 0:15:14.450 --> 0:15:20.370 irrelevant for two reasons. The first reason, they said, is 0:15:20.410 --> 0:15:23.370 that Jim Collins would have been briefed that his flight 0:15:23.450 --> 0:15:27.250 path went over Mount Erebus. You see, it might have 0:15:27.410 --> 0:15:31.130 looked like a sensible decision to change the flight path 0:15:31.250 --> 0:15:35.610 to over McMurdo Sound, but it wasn't. In fact, it 0:15:35.650 --> 0:15:40.410 was a mistake, a typographical error when the coordinates got 0:15:40.450 --> 0:15:45.090 transferred to a new computer system for over a year, 0:15:45.370 --> 0:15:50.490 the airline said nobody noticed that mistake. The officer who 0:15:50.530 --> 0:15:54.690 briefed the pilots told Peter marn that he always believed 0:15:54.730 --> 0:15:59.170 the flight path went over Mount Erebus. The executive pilots 0:15:59.210 --> 0:16:03.610 agreed nobody had ever noticed that the waypoint coordinates took 0:16:03.650 --> 0:16:08.890 them over McMurdo Sound instead. Then Peter Mahn heard from 0:16:08.930 --> 0:16:13.250 the non executive pilots who told a very different story. 0:16:14.130 --> 0:16:16.970 They all said they had been briefed to fly down 0:16:17.050 --> 0:16:23.410 McMurdo Sound. This all gave Peter Marn a problem. He 0:16:23.490 --> 0:16:26.370 put it in diplomatic language. 0:16:26.610 --> 0:16:29.290 I could not help but be struck by the direct 0:16:29.370 --> 0:16:31.850 conflict of evidence which had emerged. 0:16:33.410 --> 0:16:40.250 What he meant was someone was telling lies. Marn believed 0:16:40.330 --> 0:16:44.810 the non executive pilots one had been at the same 0:16:44.930 --> 0:16:49.250 briefing as Jim Collins. He told Marn there'd been shown 0:16:49.370 --> 0:16:54.010 print outs of the coordinates given to other flights. Marn 0:16:54.130 --> 0:16:59.130 understood what must have happened. Jim Collins, the habitual note taker, 0:16:59.890 --> 0:17:04.250 wrote down the coordinates during the briefing. The night before 0:17:04.290 --> 0:17:08.690 the flight, when his teenage daughters saw him drawing lines 0:17:08.690 --> 0:17:12.530 on a map he was plotting his flight path. It 0:17:12.650 --> 0:17:17.530 took him down Murdo Sound. Then, on the morning of 0:17:17.570 --> 0:17:20.650 the flight, Collins was given a print out of the 0:17:20.690 --> 0:17:25.210 coordinates to enter into the plane's computer. He assumed they 0:17:25.290 --> 0:17:27.890 must be the same coordinates he had seen at his briefing. 0:17:28.090 --> 0:17:32.410 Why wouldn't they be Remember when Colins said. 0:17:32.770 --> 0:17:34.610 We're twenty six miles north. 0:17:35.850 --> 0:17:39.610 Collins was looking at the cockpit display, which told him 0:17:39.730 --> 0:17:42.770 he was twenty six miles north of the next waypoint. 0:17:43.610 --> 0:17:46.890 Because he had plotted his route the night before. He 0:17:47.050 --> 0:17:50.290 thought that meant he was over the water, but no, 0:17:50.730 --> 0:17:54.930 the coordinates had been changed. It actually meant they were 0:17:54.970 --> 0:18:05.610 about to hit a mountain. It seemed to Peter Marn 0:18:05.890 --> 0:18:10.410 that Air New Zealand had made a hideous mistake. They'd 0:18:10.490 --> 0:18:14.890 briefed Jim Collins on one flight path, then changed it 0:18:15.530 --> 0:18:19.090 and didn't tell him, And it seemed to Marn that 0:18:19.130 --> 0:18:23.290 they were trying to cover up their mistake by lying 0:18:23.370 --> 0:18:27.130 that Collins had been briefed he'd be flying over Mount Erebus. 0:18:28.250 --> 0:18:32.650 One piece of evidence would confirm what Collins had been 0:18:32.650 --> 0:18:38.410 told that his briefing. The notes he had made. Colin's ringbinder, remember, 0:18:38.610 --> 0:18:42.130 had been found on the mountain side, perfectly readable. 0:18:43.850 --> 0:18:44.090 Wow. 0:18:45.130 --> 0:18:48.490 But when Peter Marn got his hands on that ringbinder, 0:18:49.290 --> 0:18:55.330 it was empty. The pages had been damaged by kerosene 0:18:55.730 --> 0:18:59.810 and someone at Air New Zealand had thrown them away. 0:19:03.610 --> 0:19:07.130 I said there were two reasons the airline claimed the 0:19:07.250 --> 0:19:12.250 change in waypoint was irrelevant. So what if Jim Collins 0:19:12.290 --> 0:19:15.530 believed his flight path lay twenty five miles west of 0:19:15.610 --> 0:19:19.970 Mount Erebus, if he hadn't been flying too low, he 0:19:20.010 --> 0:19:25.010 would still have passed safely over the top. The minimum 0:19:25.210 --> 0:19:30.770 safe altitude, remember, was sixteen thousand feet. If Collins had 0:19:30.770 --> 0:19:35.010 followed the regulations, he wouldn't have hit the mountain, simple 0:19:35.050 --> 0:19:42.170 as that. So about those regulations, Peter Mahn noticed once 0:19:42.210 --> 0:19:45.970 again that Air New Zealand's executives were saying one thing 0:19:46.770 --> 0:19:51.650 and the non executive pilots were saying something else. The 0:19:51.730 --> 0:19:57.450 executives insisted that the minimum safe altitude was sacrisanct. The 0:19:57.490 --> 0:20:01.770 others said everyone knew those flights to Antarctica flew low. 0:20:02.090 --> 0:20:06.130 They were sightseeing flights. You can't see many sights from 0:20:06.250 --> 0:20:12.570 sixteen thousand feet. The non executive pilots told Peter Mann 0:20:12.770 --> 0:20:15.130 they had been briefed that they could fly as low 0:20:15.170 --> 0:20:17.810 as they wanted as long as they cleared it with 0:20:17.890 --> 0:20:22.370 the American radar station at McMurdo, which is exactly what 0:20:22.490 --> 0:20:24.570 Jim Collins had done. 0:20:24.770 --> 0:20:27.450 We will be taking advantage of the raidar facilities at 0:20:27.490 --> 0:20:28.730 McMurdo for letdown. 0:20:30.530 --> 0:20:35.170 Once again, Petermann was struck by the lack of documentary 0:20:35.250 --> 0:20:39.290 evidence about what had been said to Collins at his briefing. 0:20:40.610 --> 0:20:43.810 It wasn't just the pages from Colin's ring binder, that 0:20:43.890 --> 0:20:49.090 had mysteriously disappeared. The first officer had forgotten his briefing 0:20:49.170 --> 0:20:53.690 notes at home. The day after the crash, someone from 0:20:53.770 --> 0:20:58.370 Air New Zealand called on his grieving widow and took 0:20:58.450 --> 0:21:10.090 those notes away. Then the company lost them. Soon after 0:21:10.130 --> 0:21:15.970 the crash, the airline's CEO ordered that all relevant documents 0:21:16.210 --> 0:21:21.490 be gathered together and surplus documents put through a shredder. 0:21:22.530 --> 0:21:26.250 His rationale, he said, was to avoid any leaks. But 0:21:26.570 --> 0:21:31.370 was it only surplus documents that were being shredded or 0:21:31.370 --> 0:21:38.370 inconvenient ones. Some inconvenient documents remained at large, like magazine 0:21:38.450 --> 0:21:42.130 articles about the sightseeing flights, which made it very clear 0:21:42.170 --> 0:21:47.050 they were flying far lower than the minimum's safe altitude. 0:21:47.130 --> 0:21:51.690 If that was strictly forbidden, Why had no executives taken 0:21:51.810 --> 0:21:56.570 action after seeing these articles? The executive said, we never 0:21:56.610 --> 0:22:01.530 saw them. We had no idea. One of those articles 0:22:01.650 --> 0:22:05.370 was by the boss of the McDonell Douglas Corporation, which 0:22:05.650 --> 0:22:09.010 made the plane that Air New Zealand flew to Antarctica. 0:22:09.930 --> 0:22:13.930 In a trade magazine, he published an enthusiastic account of 0:22:14.170 --> 0:22:19.250 flying low down McMurdo sound. He sent a copy to 0:22:19.330 --> 0:22:23.610 the CEO of Air New Zealand. When the CEO gave 0:22:23.690 --> 0:22:28.290 evidence in Peter Mann's courtroom, he insisted he had never 0:22:28.330 --> 0:22:32.290 seen it. He doesn't read all his mail, he explained. 0:22:33.530 --> 0:22:39.170 Then it transpired that Air New Zealand's marketing department had 0:22:39.170 --> 0:22:44.370 printed a million copies of this article and sent one 0:22:44.610 --> 0:22:51.210 to every household in New Zealand. Peter Mann asked the 0:22:51.250 --> 0:22:54.930 CEO to explain. Marn recalled. 0:22:56.250 --> 0:23:00.650 He gave no verbal answer. He simply turned towards me 0:23:00.930 --> 0:23:05.970 and spread his arms outwards in a despairing gesture. He 0:23:06.090 --> 0:23:09.530 was indicating his total lack of comprehension that such a 0:23:09.570 --> 0:23:13.330 thing could have happened. I knew the feeling. 0:23:16.610 --> 0:23:22.690 The airline's case was falling apart. Jim Collins did have 0:23:22.770 --> 0:23:26.290 permission to fly low. He didn't know his flight path 0:23:26.330 --> 0:23:31.410 went over Erebus. But there remained one final mystery to unravel. 0:23:32.490 --> 0:23:37.330 How had Jim Collins failed to see Mount Erebus when 0:23:37.370 --> 0:23:41.970 it was right in front of him. The answer seemed obvious, 0:23:42.290 --> 0:23:47.090 Collins must have been flying through cloud. The transcript of 0:23:47.170 --> 0:23:51.810 the cockpit voice recording was damning a bit thick here, Ahber, 0:23:53.370 --> 0:23:56.570 but that line in the transcript came as a surprise 0:23:56.690 --> 0:24:01.010 to other pilots who'd listened to the recording. The quality 0:24:01.050 --> 0:24:04.850 of that recording was poor. Many parts were hard to 0:24:04.890 --> 0:24:10.490 make out. They didn't remember hearing anything like that, and anyway, 0:24:11.450 --> 0:24:16.370 nobody on the flight deck was called Bert. Remember what 0:24:16.690 --> 0:24:19.730 the police had found among the wreckage on the side 0:24:19.730 --> 0:24:26.210 of the mountain. Passengers cameras, some were undamaged, and the 0:24:26.210 --> 0:24:30.610 films inside were developed. They showed the plane hadn't been 0:24:30.610 --> 0:24:34.570 in thick cloud at all, far from it. Jim Collins 0:24:34.570 --> 0:24:39.090 had descended below the clouds and visibility was clear for 0:24:39.370 --> 0:24:46.730 miles around. That made Petermann suspicious about the transcript, so 0:24:46.770 --> 0:24:50.450 he flew to America to listen with an expert. The 0:24:50.570 --> 0:24:55.530 quality was poor, but it didn't sound like bit thicker 0:24:55.770 --> 0:25:01.850 a Bert. The expert thought he heard this is Cape byrd. 0:25:03.890 --> 0:25:08.490 So Marn arranged to be flown to Antarctica, following the 0:25:08.570 --> 0:25:12.890 exact same route as Jim Collins. At the moment of 0:25:12.930 --> 0:25:16.570 the disputed line and the transcript man looked out of 0:25:16.610 --> 0:25:22.770 the cockpit window, he saw a cape. It wasn't Cape Bird. 0:25:23.130 --> 0:25:26.530 That was twenty five miles west on the flight path. 0:25:26.650 --> 0:25:31.290 Jim Collins thought he was following, but by tragic coincidence. 0:25:31.570 --> 0:25:35.490 This cape just happened to look very much like cape Bird. 0:25:36.610 --> 0:25:41.890 It was confirmation bias twice over. The pilots assumed they 0:25:41.890 --> 0:25:45.250 were flying over cape Bird, so they saw cape Bird. 0:25:45.810 --> 0:25:49.410 The chief inspector assumed the pilots were flying through cloud, 0:25:50.130 --> 0:25:54.690 so he heard a bit thicker a Bert. Still, though 0:25:55.330 --> 0:26:00.450 that didn't solve the mystery, it deepened it. If visibility 0:26:00.530 --> 0:26:05.970 was good, how on earth had Jim Collins failed to 0:26:06.170 --> 0:26:14.010 see Mount Erebus Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. 0:26:20.250 --> 0:26:23.730 Most of the senior pilots had turned their backs on 0:26:23.890 --> 0:26:28.570 Jim Collins' widow, Maria, but one had not, the man 0:26:28.650 --> 0:26:30.730 who taught Jim Collins to fly. 0:26:31.970 --> 0:26:36.810 This isn't Jim Maria. This is not Jim's behavior. Something's wrong. 0:26:37.610 --> 0:26:38.610 I'm going to find out. 0:26:40.290 --> 0:26:45.090 The pilot's name was Gordon Vetti. He talked to experienced 0:26:45.210 --> 0:26:49.770 Antarctic pilots who told him about a phenomenon called whiteout. 0:26:50.850 --> 0:26:54.970 The Air New Zealand pilots who flew to Antarctica, including 0:26:55.090 --> 0:26:59.250 Vetti himself, had never been there before, and nobody at 0:26:59.290 --> 0:27:03.770 Air New Zealand had briefed them about whiteout. The more 0:27:03.850 --> 0:27:08.090 Vetty learned the more horrified he became at the risk 0:27:08.250 --> 0:27:15.090 hid unknown taken. White Out, Vetti discovered, is a peculiar 0:27:15.290 --> 0:27:20.530 visual illusion that can happen in polar regions in overcast conditions. 0:27:21.410 --> 0:27:24.530 When the land is white and the clouds are white 0:27:25.050 --> 0:27:28.890 and the light shines in a certain way, you lose 0:27:29.250 --> 0:27:35.730 all ability to perceive depth or distance. One expert told Vetti, 0:27:36.530 --> 0:27:40.730 It's like being inside a big milk bottle. It can 0:27:40.770 --> 0:27:44.810 come on suddenly and you don't necessarily realize that anything's 0:27:44.850 --> 0:27:47.930 wrong until you walk into a snowbank, or fall into 0:27:47.930 --> 0:27:53.410 a hole, or crash or plane into a frozen mountain. 0:27:58.890 --> 0:28:02.930 Gordon Vetti understood what had happened in the final moments 0:28:02.970 --> 0:28:03.570 of the flight. 0:28:04.770 --> 0:28:05.530 I don't like this. 0:28:06.930 --> 0:28:10.690 We're twenty six miles north. We'll have to climb. 0:28:10.450 --> 0:28:17.690 Out of this, climb out of this. What did Jim 0:28:17.770 --> 0:28:22.330 Collins want to climb out of? Vetti says it must 0:28:22.410 --> 0:28:26.850 have been that disconcerting sense of being in a milk bottle. 0:28:28.010 --> 0:28:31.650 Collins was below the cloud. He could see for miles 0:28:31.690 --> 0:28:35.610 to the left and right, but he hadn't been briefed 0:28:35.610 --> 0:28:39.930 about white out. He had no idea that right in 0:28:39.970 --> 0:28:43.090 front of him he'd be unable to tell a flat 0:28:43.410 --> 0:28:47.890 expanse of frozen water from the rising slopes of a 0:28:47.930 --> 0:28:52.770 frozen hillside. It just have sensed that something was off, 0:28:53.610 --> 0:28:58.250 so his instinct was to climb, but it was too late. 0:29:00.930 --> 0:29:02.850 Vetty shudders to think of it. 0:29:04.290 --> 0:29:06.090 If I had been in their position at that time, 0:29:07.610 --> 0:29:10.130 I would probably have been misled the same respect as 0:29:10.170 --> 0:29:14.050 they were, and now myself may well have crashed on 0:29:14.170 --> 0:29:14.810 Mount Erebus. 0:29:18.530 --> 0:29:21.890 Gordon Vetti wanted to make sure Peter Marn knew about 0:29:21.890 --> 0:29:24.850 white out, so he flew in an expert at his 0:29:24.890 --> 0:29:30.010 own expense, to give evidence to Marn's Royal Commission. Later, 0:29:30.490 --> 0:29:35.930 when Marn himself visited Antarctica, the Australian Air Force offered 0:29:35.970 --> 0:29:41.410 him a lift home. The crew were experienced Antarctic flyers 0:29:41.730 --> 0:29:44.810 and they'd been following the news about Marn's Royal Commission. 0:29:46.090 --> 0:29:50.050 They invited Marm to the cockpit for takeoff. They wanted 0:29:50.090 --> 0:29:58.330 to show him something. The day was overcast. The pilots 0:29:58.650 --> 0:30:02.250 flew towards a ridge of snow and pointed out how 0:30:02.290 --> 0:30:04.850 it ended in a black, rocky outcrop. 0:30:06.290 --> 0:30:12.130 Marn recalls could just make out the top of the ridge. 0:30:12.650 --> 0:30:16.410 Then they told him, now raise your hand to cover 0:30:16.530 --> 0:30:18.250 that black, rocky outcrop. 0:30:19.890 --> 0:30:24.410 The top of the snow ridge disappeared, and stuntly. 0:30:25.490 --> 0:30:31.770 All that Marn could see was undifferentiated white. He was stunned. 0:30:33.050 --> 0:30:35.730 It was one thing to hear about white out from 0:30:35.770 --> 0:30:41.530 an expert, quite another to experience it for himself. The 0:30:41.570 --> 0:30:52.850 Australian crew were satisfied. That's the illusion that doomed Jim Collins. 0:30:54.170 --> 0:30:58.090 Marn had spent months growing more and more frustrated that 0:30:58.250 --> 0:31:01.570 Air New Zealand executives were trying to pull the wool 0:31:01.610 --> 0:31:06.570 over his eyes. He appreciated that these young men from 0:31:06.570 --> 0:31:11.890 another country's air force wanted to help him understand. When 0:31:11.890 --> 0:31:15.410 he wrote up the findings of his Royal Commission, he 0:31:15.490 --> 0:31:23.130 thanked every one of them by name and rank. Peter 0:31:23.250 --> 0:31:27.770 Mahn's findings turned the Chief Inspector's report on its head. 0:31:28.770 --> 0:31:32.930 The cause of the accident, said Marn, wasn't Jim Collins 0:31:32.970 --> 0:31:37.330 flying too low. It was Air New Zealand failing to 0:31:37.330 --> 0:31:40.930 brief him properly about the risk of whiteout, and failing 0:31:40.970 --> 0:31:44.690 to tell him that they'd changed his waypoint coordinates between 0:31:44.810 --> 0:31:49.450 the briefing and the flight. The Chief Inspector had heaped 0:31:49.570 --> 0:31:54.690 all the blame on Jim Collins. Marn said Collins deserved 0:31:54.770 --> 0:32:03.250 no blame at all. Not everyone agrees. On internet discussion boards, 0:32:03.690 --> 0:32:08.530 pilots still expressed strong views either way. Did Collins rely 0:32:08.730 --> 0:32:11.970 too much on the computerized navigation system to tell him 0:32:11.970 --> 0:32:15.690 where he was? Peter Mann didn't think so. He points 0:32:15.730 --> 0:32:19.890 out how accurate that system is, although perhaps we've since 0:32:19.970 --> 0:32:24.170 grown more mistrustful of the idea that the machine could 0:32:24.250 --> 0:32:28.730 never fly us into a mountain. The Distinguished Air Marshal, 0:32:28.810 --> 0:32:32.450 who had served as Man's technical advisor, thought that the 0:32:32.530 --> 0:32:37.730