Disaster pilot's trust honours Air NZ

Air New Zealand stands as a recipient of a union safety award set up in honour of the pilot it tried to blame for the Mt Erebus air disaster a quarter of a century ago.

The honour was awarded last year by a trust jointly administered by the Airline Pilots Association and the family of Captain Jim Collins, commander of the DC10 sightseeing flight on which all 257 passengers and crew died on November 28, 1979.

But the airline's receipt of the James Collins Memorial Award, which it says it was very honoured to accept, has only come to light as the country prepares to commemorate the 25th anniversary on Sunday of the tragedy.

"Passenger and staff safety are paramount for Air NZ - simply they are non-negotiable," operations standard and safety general manager Captain David Morgan said in a statement to the Herald.

"Air NZ was extremely honoured to receive the award for bringing to light an industry issue and share our learnings with peers around the world."

Airline spokesman Mike Tod said the Erebus tragedy was an important part of Air NZ's history "and we are acutely aware of the responsibilities that come with that". But he said it would be inappropriate for the airline's management to comment on actions of its predecessors.

Pilots association president Captain Paul Lyons said it was Maria Collins, widow of the Erebus flight commander, who suggested that Air NZ be recognised for its investigation into an incident involving a Boeing 767 over Samoa in mid-2000 with 172 people on board.

"Maria felt the airline had come such a long way in terms of its investigation in such an open and honest way. It is all too easy to blame someone in the aircrew or on the ground, but the investigation opened the incident all the way up."

The incident involved a faulty signal from a ground beacon at Apia airport which fooled the 767's on-board navigational equipment that it was on a correct descent path.

According to a training video inspired by the incident, crew had to break a "mindset" of trust in what was usually a precise ground aid to rescue the craft after noticing village lights from a neighbouring island were too close. Although Captain Lyons was loath to draw too close a comparison with the Erebus flight, a royal commission found that Captain Collins did not have the luxury of such a last-minute warning.

He was flying in a whiteout disguising the Antarctic mountain on computer navigation co-ordinates which had been changed on the ground in Auckland without his knowledge, and which Justice Peter Mahon found he had no reason to doubt.

Captain Lyons believes the Erebus disaster could have been averted had new terrain warning technology based on a global positioning system been available in 1979. This technology is now on all Air NZ Boeing 737s and is being fitted to the rest of the airline's fleet.

He said the corporate culture at Air NZ had been turned "upside down" in recent years.

The award, which recognises exceptional contributions to aviation safety, was established in 1989 on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy.

Mrs Collins said it was dedicated to her husband "to keep Jim's name alive in the profession he loved".