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Updated: June 9, 2025
While largely agreed about the whiteout conditions, the Commissioner and the Chief Inspector took quite different views as to whether the crew had been uncertain of their position and visibility.
In relation to the cover-up allegations that have been made against the executive officers some reference should be made to their knowledge or otherwise of the freak meteorological condition known as "the whiteout phenomenon". Did they know or suspect that such a condition must have been an explanation for what happened and yet still be determined as the Commissioner found, to promote pilot error as the cause of the crash?
Unfortunately it is not so well known by others, and as the Commissioner stated in paragraph 165 it was not understood by any of those involved in this case. He said: "So far as I understand the evidence, I do not believe that either the airline or Civil Aviation Division ever understood the term 'whiteout' to mean anything else than a snowstorm.
A landing on the special whiteout landing field can be accomplished only by an aircraft equipped with skis or, in the case of an aircraft without skis, then it must make a belly-up landing on this snow-covered emergency airfield. Flying in a 'whiteout' of that description is no different from flying in thick cloud.
Erebus and omitted to tell the aircrew'. He exonerated the crew from any error contributing to the disaster. The Commissioner and the Chief Inspector were at one in concluding that the crash has occurred in a whiteout. The Commissioner gave this vivid reconstruction in the course of para. 40 of his report: I have already made it clear that the aircraft struck the lower slopes of Mt.
The pilot cannot know where he is and must land in accordance with strict radio and radar directions. So far as I understand the evidence, I do not believe that either the airline or Civil Aviation Division ever understood the term 'whiteout' to mean anything else than a snowstorm.
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