occasion of final briefing of the aircrew immediately before the
aircraft left Auckland on the morning of 28th November 1981.

A different comment upon paragraph 48 is central in this part of the
case. It is very hard to understand why the chief executive officer of
this airline should have had any duty to pass on for debate and public
prejudgment the same material that in accord with his responsibility had
been properly and immediately placed before the appointed official
required and well equipped to assess it.


"Irrelevant" Documents

At the beginning of this judgment a different aspect of paragraph 45 is
explained by contrast with the following paragraph 46 which correctly
summarizes instructions given by Mr Davis for the disposal of surplus
copies of documents lest they be leaked to the news media. In paragraph
46 it is explained by the Commissioner that "his instructions were that
_only copies of existing documents were to be destroyed_. He said that
he did not want any surplus document to remain at large in case its
contents were released to the news media by some employee of the
airline. The chief executive insisted that his instructions were that
all documents of relevance were to be retained on the single file"
(emphasis added). There was no evidence before the Royal Commission to
any contrary effect. But in the preceding paragraph a different
impression is given. The relevant part of paragraph 45 reads--

"He directed that all documents relating to Antarctic flights, and
to this flight in particular, were to be collected and impounded.
They were all to be put on one single file which would remain in