Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of t | Page 4

about 6
miles before it intercepted the low ice cliff which marked the
commencement of the icy slope leading upwards to the mountain, and
at that point the uniform white surface of the mountain slope proceeded
upwards, first at an angle of 13°, and then with a gradually increasing
upward angle as it merged with the ceiling of the cloud overhead. The
only feature of the forward terrain which was not totally white
consisted of two small and shallow strips of black rock at the very
bottom of the ice cliff, and these could probably not be seen from the
flight deck seats owing to the nose-up attitude of 5° at which the
aircraft was travelling, or they were mistaken for thin strips of sea
previously observed by the crew as separating blocks of pack ice.
The aircraft had thus encountered, at a fateful coincidence in time, the
insidious and unidentifiable terrain deception of a classic whiteout

situation. They had encountered that type of visual illusion which
makes rising white plateaux appear perfectly flat. This freak of polar
weather is known and feared by every polar flier. In some Arctic
regions in the Canadian and in the north European winter, it is
responsible for numbers of light aircraft crashes every year. Aircraft fly,
in clear air, directly into hills and mountains. But neither Captain
Collins nor First Officer Cassin had ever flown at low altitude in polar
regions before. Even Mr Mulgrew [the commentator for the
passengers], with his antarctic experience, was completely deceived.
The fact that not one of the five persons on the flight deck ever
identified the rising terrain confirms the totality of this weird and
dangerous ocular illusion as it existed on the approach to Mt. Erebus at
12.50 p.m. on 28 November 1979.
Paragraph 165 of the Commissioner's report also merits quotation. We
have underlined some of it, indicating that in this particular part of his
report the Commissioner seems to accept that when they first heard of
the crash the management of the airline must have been unaware of the
true nature and danger of a whiteout. If so, they would have had no
reason to suppose that the pilot would have elected to fly at such a low
level without real visibility. That is an aspect which could well have
been strongly relied on if, when giving evidence before the
Commissioner, they had realised that they were being accused of trying
to cover up the cause of the crash from an early stage:
The term 'whiteout' has more than one meaning as being descriptive of
weather conditions in snow-covered terrain. For aviation purposes it is
often described as the cause of the visual difficulty which occurs when
a aircraft is attempting to land during a snowstorm. As already stated,
the United States Navy maintains a special whiteout landing area
situated to the south of its normal landing strips near McMurdo Station.
This area is used when an aircraft, which is committed to a landing, is
required to land when visibility is obscured by a snowstorm. The snow
in Antarctica is perfectly dry, and a wind of only 20 kilometres can
sweep loose snow off the surface and fill the air with these fine white
particles. A landing on the special whiteout landing field can be
accomplished only by an aircraft equipped with skis or, in the case of
an aircraft without skis, then it must make a belly-up landing on this
snow-covered emergency airfield. Flying in a 'whiteout' of that

description is no different from flying in thick cloud. The pilot cannot
know where he is and must land in accordance with strict radio and
radar directions. So far as I understand the evidence, I do not believe
that either the airline or Civil Aviation Division ever understood the
term 'whiteout' to mean anything else than a snowstorm. I do not
believe that they were ever aware, until they read the chief inspector's
report of the type of 'whiteout' which occurs in clear air, in calm
conditions, and which creates this visual illusion which I have
previously described and which is, without doubt, the most dangerous
of all polar weather phenomena.
While largely agreed about the whiteout conditions, the Commissioner
and the Chief Inspector took quite different views as to whether the
crew had been uncertain of their position and visibility. This
disagreement is associated with a major difference as to the
interpretation of the tape recovered from the cockpit voice recorder
covering the conversation on the flight deck during the 30 minutes
before the crash.
Both the Commissioner and the Chief Inspector found difficulty in
arriving at an opinion about what was said and by whom. Whereas the
Chief Inspector thought that the two flight engineers had voiced
mounting alarm at proceeding at a