Manual, and that this committee was appointed accordingly.  If it had been before the Inquiry it would have supported the view that Mr Davis had decided the chairman should not be associated with the flight operations side of Air New Zealand and for that reason he appointed Mr Watson who had charge of certain related companies.  There is also an affidavit sworn by Captain Priest who was appointed by the Airline Pilots Association to sit as its representative on the committee.  Taken at its face value it is to the effect that he took part in the committee’s work from the meeting on 3rd December.  In the affidavit he has explained:  “My position on that Committee was an ALPA watchdog—­there were two other independent members”; that as the inquiry progressed “it became apparent that the committee was amassing a large amount of papers”; and that Mr Watson then announced that he had been directed by the chief executive to get all the information onto one file and any surplus disposed of to avoid information getting into the wrong hands.  The affidavit indicates that it was then agreed by the committee itself that this should be done on the basis that the master file was to be available to the committee members at any time and it appears that Captain Priest joined in that decision.  It is not for us to decide what would have been the effect or significance of all this material if it had been placed before the Royal Commission but since the conspiracy to deceive theory that is developed in the Royal Commission Report apparently stems from the instruction given by Mr Davis clearly the officers so gravely affected were entitled to be warned in advance and so be given the opportunity to have such information fairly and properly considered.

Search at Mt.  Erebus

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.