to answer the complaint in the Appendix that "The management of the
airline _instructed its counsel_ to deny every allegation of fault, and
to counter-attack by ascribing total culpability to the air crew". The
tribute the Commissioner paid counsel in paragraph 375 (the same counsel
appeared in this Court for the applicants) is not altogether consistent
with those last remarks. In any event the appendix continues--

"Apart from that, there were material elements of information in
the possession of the airline which were originally not disclosed,
omissions for which counsel for the airline were in no way
responsible, and which successively came to light at different
stages of the Inquiry when the hearings had been going on for
weeks, in some cases for months."

A final comment should be made about the criticisms of the airline
concerning the position it adopted concerning pilot error as a cause of
the accident.

In the course of his evidence (at p. 272) Mr. Chippindale was asked by
the Commissioner: "Was not the position Capt. Collins must have clearly
have thought he was flying toward McMurdo over McMurdo Sound?" He said,
"It is my belief that this could be the only possible reason for him to
continue". That is an important answer. It means that in this respect
Mr. Chippindale had reached the same conclusion as the Commissioner but
for general reasons of logic whereas the latter was influenced by his
finding that Captain Collins had made use of the New Zealand Atlas or a
chart in order to plot the position of the waypoint and the route to be
taken by the aircraft.

But although this general conclusion about McMurdo Sound was shared it