the latter have been discussed. The Commissioner held that they had not
been taken aboard the aircraft. But he was concerned with whatever else
may have been carried onto the DC10 by First Officer Cassin in his
flight bag; and about the contents of Captain Collin's flight bag which
he believed would include the atlas and briefing documents. In fact the
only evidence concerning the possible survival of the first officer's
flight bag, let alone its contents, was a name-tag which finally reached
Mrs Cassin through Captain Crosbie, the welfare representative. Since
there is no description of the contents and it has been held that the
briefing material was left behind anyway, the fate of the bag itself
would seem to be immaterial.

On the other hand it is known that after the accident Captain Collins'
bag was seen on Mt. Erebus. The matter has been mentioned. The bag did
not reach his widow as it would normally have done if it had been
received and returned to New Zealand and this fact is the focus of
attention in the Royal Commission report.

In order to examine the matter it will be remembered that the
mountaineer, Mr Woodford, arrived by helicopter searching for survivors
on the morning of 29th November. In the letter he sent to the Royal
Commission he said he found the bag then and: "My recollection is that
it was empty when I first inspected it. It certainly contained no
diaries or briefing material." Apparently the bag had been thrown from
the disintegrating aircraft at the time of impact and its contents lost
in the snow or scattered by winds before the arrival of the
mountaineers. But whatever the reason for their absence from the bag it
is the contents that matter in this case--not the flight bag itself. And
according to the letter they had already disappeared from the bag three
days before the New Zealand party arrived there. So like the bag of