“... counsel for the airline adopted, in the course of their detailed and exemplary final submissions, the very proper course of not attributing blame to any specific quarter but leaving it to me to assemble such contributing causes as I thought the evidence had revealed.”

In that regard some of the statements which were made on behalf of the airline are not unimportant.  At one point counsel said—­

“By now it should be apparent to the smallest mind that the Company has not espoused, and does not espouse, a proposition that the accident can be contributed to a sole cause, let alone a sole cause of pilot error.  If from the evidence adduced, there emerges or is implicit a criticism of the Company’s flight crew, that criticism has been moderate, informed and responsible.”

And in the same context—­

“I would, with respect, also remind Your Honour that in the very nature of these proceedings there has not been an opportunity for a formal opening where one might have expected just that.  But I would further suggest, Sir, that the evidence advanced by the Company, which has been in an attempt to bring every witness who can contribute something towards the causal factors and everything else has been done, not selectively, and there have been witnesses who have plainly, unequivocally, acknowledged their fault, their error.  There has not in any way been a parade of witnesses all seeking to criticize the flight crew and thus, as it were, exonerate themselves.  There has been an endeavour, without selection, to reveal all the evidence to reveal all the documents ...”.

This statement by senior counsel for the airline as to the manner in which he had attempted to handle his responsibilities should be enough to answer the complaint in the Appendix that “The management of the airline instructed its counsel to deny every allegation of fault, and to counter-attack by ascribing total culpability to the air crew”.  The tribute the Commissioner paid counsel in paragraph 375 (the same counsel appeared in this Court for the applicants) is not altogether consistent with those last remarks.  In any event the appendix continues—­

“Apart from that, there were material elements of information in the possession of the airline which were originally not disclosed, omissions for which counsel for the airline were in no way responsible, and which successively came to light at different stages of the Inquiry when the hearings had been going on for weeks, in some cases for months.”

A final comment should be made about the criticisms of the airline concerning the position it adopted concerning pilot error as a cause of the accident.