day.  It was urged upon me, on behalf of the airline, that McMurdo Air Traffic Control would consider the word ‘McMurdo’ as indicating a different position from that appearing on Air Traffic Control flight plans dispatched from Auckland during 1978 and 1979.  I cannot for a moment accept that suggestion.  First Officer Rhodes made a specific inquiry at McMurdo within a few days of the disaster and ascertained that the destination waypoint of the first Air Traffic Control flight plan for 1979 had been plotted by the United States Air Traffic Control personnel, and there was evidence from the United States witnesses that this would be normal practice.  In my view the word ‘McMurdo’ would merely be regarded, and was indeed regarded, by McMurdo Air Traffic Control as referring to the same McMurdo waypoint which had always existed.  In my opinion, the introduction of the word ‘McMurdo’ into the Air Traffic Control flight plan for the fatal flight was deliberately designed to conceal from the United States authorities that the flight path had been changed, and probably because it was known that the United States Air Traffic Control would lodge an objection to the new flight path.

(f) I have reviewed the evidence in support of the allegation that the Navigation Section believed, by reason of a mistaken verbal communication, that the altered McMurdo waypoint only involved a change of 2.1 nautical miles.  I am obliged to say that I do not accept that explanation.  There were certainly grave deficiencies in communication within the Navigation Section, but the high professional skills of the Navigation Section’s staff entirely preclude the possibility of such an error.  In my opinion this explanation that the change in the waypoint was thought to be minimal in terms of distance is a concocted story designed to explain away the fundamental mistake, made by someone, in failing to ensure that Captain Collins was notified that his aircraft was now programmed to fly on a collision course with Mt.  Erebus.

These paragraphs are attacked on the grounds, in short, that the members of the navigation section said to be adversely affected by them—­according to the applicants, Mr R. Brown as regards (e) and Messrs Amies, Brown, Hewitt and Lawton as regards (f)—­were not given a fair opportunity of answering the findings or allegations.

To understand this complaint one needs a clear picture of what it was that the Commission found or alleged against the navigation section.  When studying the report as a whole we have encountered difficulties in this regard, difficulties not altogether removed when we explored them during the argument with Mr Baragwanath.  But our understanding is that in essence the Commissioner suggests that the original change of the southernmost point to one in the Sound, 25 miles west of McMurdo Station, was probably deliberate on the part of the navigation section (although he refrained from a definite finding) and that in November