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At this point it should be mentioned that the print-out of a flight plan shows not merely the co-ordinate waypoints but also a finely calculated statement of the direction and distance between them.
Thus the precise track and distance is used for purposes of fuel calculations and has importance as a check in navigation. All this information is disclosed on page 96 of the Royal Commission Report where the print-out is shown for the flight plan with the co-ordinates for McMurdo showing the longitude as 164° 48' east.
Any such print-out would have been made before the alteration and consequently would have shown the longitude of the southernmost waypoint as 164° 48' E. The Commissioner accordingly concluded that Captain Collins had plotted a route down the Sound. No doubt this tended to reinforce his view that the Captain, flying on nav track, had never doubted that he was in fact over the Sound.
On the facing page 97 there is a print-out of the flight plan actually used on the fatal flight which shows the correction made to the longitude, 166° 58' east. It will shortly be mentioned that when that correction was made the navigation section say it was thought to involve a minor movement of only 2.1 miles or 10 minutes of longitude.
That last information is needed prior to a flight departure in order to calculate tonnages of fuel during the prospective journey and accordingly as a flight proceeds it enables the quantity of fuel already consumed to be checked against the anticipated consumption in the flight plan print-out.
A major point in the Commissioner's reasoning, and one that helps to explain the difference between the two reports, is that on the basis of evidence from the wife and two daughters of Captain Collins he accepted that, at home the night before the flight, the Captain had plotted on an atlas and two maps a route of the flight; and he drew the inference that Captain Collins must then have had with him a computer print-out.
So that finally when a print-out of the plan is obtained it will disclose not merely the geographical co-ordinates for each waypoint but the true track direction and the distance in nautical miles from one to the next.
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