complaints of the applicants are justified and that the statements
should never have been made. It was done without authority of the terms
of reference of the Commission and without any warning to the officers
affected. Thus they were given no opportunity at all to answer and deny
as they claim in affidavits now before this Court they were in a
position to do.

Because of the view we take of some aspects of the facts and of the law
we would be prepared to go further than the other members of the Court
in regard to the formal order to be made in this case. We also find it
necessary to go further in our conclusions in regard to a number of
matters of fact. We feel sure, however, that reputation can be
vindicated and the interests of justice met by the formal decision of
this Court which will have the effect of quashing a penal order of the
Commissioner requiring Air New Zealand to pay the large sum of $150,000
as costs in the Royal Commission Inquiry.


The Two Inquiries

Before the Royal Commission was appointed and began its work a statutory
investigation had already been carried out in terms of the Civil
Aviation (Accident Investigation) Regulations 1978. Immediately it was
known that the aircraft had crashed on Mount Erebus the standard
procedures for aircraft accident investigation were invoked by the Chief
Inspector of Air Accidents, Mr R. Chippindale. And he arrived in the
Antarctic with a small team of experts on the day following the
disaster. They included mountaineers, police, surveyors, the chief pilot
of Air New Zealand (Captain Gemmell), and a representative of the
Airline Pilots Association, named in the present proceedings as the