Unanswered questions plague family

BY ANNA CHALMERS

Thirty years after the Air New Zealand plane their father flew crashed into the slopes of Mt Erebus killing all 257 onboard, the Collins family have many unanswered questions. They hope the country understands their search for "some kind of peace".

Pilot Captain Jim Collins' daughter Philippa (Pip) has lived in the shadow of the Erebus disaster since she was nine. That was the last time she saw her father.

The third of four daughters, Pip and her youngest sister Adrienne, have "just snippets" of memories of their dad.

They remember him playing games as he tucked them into bed at night. And in the days following his sudden death, going to Pizza Hut and not having to go to school.

As the 30th anniversary rolls around, the pilot's family have not tired of the annual remembering, despite it inevitably bringing up the same stories - and media intrusion.

"I would have gone 20 years and maybe talked about it half a dozen times," Adrienne says. "Through my school and university it wasn't talked about. It's this great big elephant in the room."

The Collins family, including older sisters Kathryn Carter and Elizabeth Collins, say it's been a great relief to talk about the crash - and increasingly, as they discover more, are seeking answers to odd events surrounding it.

"I hope that the public of NZ understand this need to have something that addresses this issue of unfinished business," Pip says.

"It's not a self-indulgent motivation. We're not trying to rehash it and relive it - it's a search for some kind of peace."

This includes the mystery of their father's notebook, which had loose leaf pages containing technical writing - believed to possibly be the route Mr Collins understood he was flying that day - which went missing after the ringbinder was found on the ice.

Maria Collins laid an official complaint two years ago with Police Commissioner Howard Broad after hearing a disturbing account from two of the police officers that recovered her husband's body and possessions from the site.

It was an accidental meeting after Philippa "invited herself" to a medal ceremony at Parliament in 2007 where the work of the Erebus crash-site recovery team was officially recognised for the first time.

None of the Collins family had ever had contact with the crash recovery team before, which included now Wellington Senior Inspector Greg Gilpin. "He was like it's so good to meet you." And told her how they recovered her father's body.

"It was totally random - it was an event I wasn't even invited to."

Shortly after, he and Inspector Stuart Leighton, who first found the notebook on the ice, flew to Auckland and met the rest of the Collins family.

They subsequently spoke with the Collins' family lawyer Paul Davison QC - who represented the family at Justice Mahon's 1981 Commission of Inquiry - about what they recovered and their growing distress at how Mr Collin's notebook had been handled.

Mr Gilpin remembers clearly handling the notebook on the slopes. It was largely undamaged and contained technical writing, which he believed likely related to the flight.

He says he knew immediately it could be important and put it in a sealed plastic bag.

Also included in the family's police complaint are questions around a suspicious burglary on March 29, 1980, - the first evening the family had left the home together since the accident.

The burglars carefully concealed their entry point and nothing of value was taken. However, a photograph Mrs Collins had of her husband beside her bed was ripped in half.

"The things that were taken were odd", Kathryn Carter says.

Family members believe the thieves were probably looking for copies of the flight plan.

"The police officer who investigated maintains that it was suspicious," Mrs Carter says. She describes Erebus as an "open wound that's never able to heal".

The controversy that has subsequently shrouded the accident, in particular its cause - there are those that blame the airline versus the actions of the crew - have made events harder. "You never quite know where people's views lie," Kathryn says.

"Initial newspaper coverage was all about pilot error - and it was only the Mahon report that helped eradicate some of this."

She says Air New Zealand, which the family acknowledges is a different company today, did not handle the situation well.

Kathryn remembers finding a clean sack at the door with her dad's gear in it. "His toilet bag and a change of clothes he'd taken [in] a brown paper clean sack, which was left by the front door. That was it. It was just, just left."

The last 30 years have been spent trying to understand the crash and piece together why it happened. It's been hurtful watching his public denigration over an accident that was not her father's fault, Mrs Carter says.

"The crew had been briefed two weeks prior to the flight, then they changed the co-ordinates, then the flight left. I think it's fairly straight forward - if you're going to change the co-ordinates you tell the pilots."

On the controversial issue of flying the plane so low - Collins had been given clearance to fly the plane at 1500 feet but Air NZ says he should not have gone that low - she says it's simple: the other pilots flew at that altitude, it was expected on the sightseeing flights.

"They should have been in a different place. The height issue is irrelevant - if you're flying over flat sea ice."

The criticism is particularly galling because he was so meticulous, she says. "He didn't even toot at people in case he alarmed them. That's what's so ironic."

Justice Mahon's Commission of Inquiry found "sector whiteout"- an optical illusion created by the snow and weather conditions -  meant the mountain was not visible despite flying directly towards it.

Mrs Collins acknowledges New Zealanders' views are mixed. Many have taken the crew's side, but there are others, including former pilots, "who think if you're driving the thing, you must be at fault".

She believed progress had been made in 1999 when Justice Mahon's report, which blamed Air NZ for its bungled co-ordinate change, was officially tabled in Parliament, but is upset Civil Aviation still upholds its earlier report by Inspector Ron Chippendale, which blames the crew for flying the plane too low.

She welcomes the discussion because she wants her husband's integrity back.

"Maybe some people can better understand it and why it's a perpetual talking point.

"For anybody to think that we were blindly shielding that pilot when he was at fault all the time, they don't know what they're talking about. Or that he would be irresponsible - I can only say that that word did not pertain to him, ever."

Air New Zealand's apology last month for its handling of the crisis changes little. "To say 'sorry we didn't come around on the day it happened', that's not really what [I want]. It's the reinstatement of Jim and the crew's integrity ."

- © Fairfax NZ News