against Captain Eden without any such allegation ever having been put to
him. Captain Eden gave evidence later in the inquiry than First Officer
Rhodes and the transcript shows that he was asked nothing by anyone
about their discussion.


Captain Gemmell

The following paragraphs of the report are attacked for their references
to this senior officer:

352. As to the ring-binder notebook, it had been returned to Mrs
Collins by an employee of the airline, but all the pages of the
notebook were missing. Captain Gemmell was asked about this in
evidence. He suggested that, the pages might have been removed
because they had been damaged by kerosene. However, the ring-binder
notebook itself, which was produced at the hearing, was entirely
undamaged.

353. After the evidence given before the Commission had concluded,
I gave some thought to the matters just mentioned. I knew that the
responsibility for recovering all property on the crash site lay
exclusively with the New Zealand Police Force, and that they had
grid-searched the entire site. All property recovered had been
placed in a large store at McMurdo Base, which was padlocked, and
access to the shed was only possible through a senior sergeant of
Police. I asked counsel assisting the Commission to make inquiries
about the flight bags which had been located on the site but which
had not been returned to Mrs Collins or Mrs Cassin.