cards on the table at the outset, or it can adopt an adversary
stance. In the present case, the latter course was decided upon.
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, against whom there were alleged no
less than 13 separate varieties of pilot error. All those
allegations, in my opinion, were without foundation. 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.
I am not going to burden this recital with detailed particulars,
but I should have been told at the outset that the flight path from
Hallett to McMurdo was not binding on pilots, that Captain Wilson
briefed pilots to maintain whatever altitudes were authorised by
McMurdo Air Traffic Control, that documents were ordered by the
chief executive to be destroyed, that an investigation committee
had been set up by the airline in respect of which a file was held,
and that one million copies of the Brizindine article had been
printed, a fact never revealed by the airline at all. So it was not
a question of the airline putting all its cards on the table. The
cards were produced reluctantly, and at long intervals, and I have
little doubt that there are one or two which still lie hidden in
the pack. In such circumstances the airline must make a
contribution towards the public cost of the Inquiry.

...

6. The costs incurred by the Government in respect of this Inquiry