A Pacific Blue pilot charged with operating a Boeing 737 carelessly two years ago had extensive experience in icy, clouded and night conditions, he told the Queenstown District Court yesterday.
The 54-year-old Auckland pilot, who has been granted name suppression, took the witness stand yesterday and explained to judge Michael Phillips in his 33 years as a commercial pilot he had encountered similar conditions.
His experience included 16,043 hours total; flying, 6000 hours in a Boeing 737 and 30 years flying in and out of Queenstown.
"Extensive experience up and down the country in dark, in winter, five or six winters. Late hours of the night, a lot of cold hours in the night in that regard."
The pilot was in charge of a flight which left Queenstown carrying 71 passengers bound for Sydney after the Pacific Blue evening civil twilight (ECT) cutoff time of 5.14pm.
His departure of 5.25pm, however, was before the official ECT of 5.36pm.
"I've had them all - fronts, snow. I have had extensive experience of frontal conditions in the South Island. Very often in the winter time in sub-zero temperatures.
"It wasn't uncommon to fly in cloud from go to whoa some days."
The pilot admitted upon reaching Queenstown from Sydney on a return trip, he had been advised of a front moving out from the southwest and had entered cloud at about 20,000ft.
"It was obvious this front was coming and I thought it was best to do a rapid turn around [to fly back again]."
He noticed the weather was getting worse as passengers were boarding, and opted to keep them on the plane rather than having them disembark, in the hope the weather would improve.
He recalled cloud halfway up Deer Park Heights, but was satisfied that in the case of an engine failure he would be able to take off, fly the figure-of-eight contingency plan and return to the runway.
"I had no intention of going into cloud and avoiding any obstacles based on this [the Pacific Blue Boeing performance] chart."
He admitted he had made no allowance for wind and temperature before departure.
Earlier, the Civil Aviation Authority's general airline manager Captain Mark Hughes told the court if faced with the same situation, he would not have left the airport.
"The important thing for me is the information given to the pilot before take-off. A prudent pilot would not take off in those conditions, particularly on a narrow runway and particularly when they haven't been given the clearance to do it." Capt Hughes pointed out high crosswinds, the lack of light at the time, the actual time the plane took off, and the pilot's ill-preparation to apply the anti-ice function in case it were needed, as factors of carelessness.
"I accept that he's highly experienced. You are talking about prudence and care.
"The next minute, they are taking off in crosswinds that exceed the company maximum.
"The two are not in sync. If I were in that situation, I wouldn't have left the gate."
The defence argues the pilot's actions of leaving at 5.25pm, with a low cloud ceiling, on a wet runway and with crosswinds exceeding 16 knots, were below the level of carelessness.
Captain Hughes said if the pilot took off on the assumption cloud and conditions were going to improve beyond Deer Park Heights, he was wrong to do so.
He said had the pilot considered the conditions before departure, cockpit indicators such as "don't sink and bank angle" would not have happened.
"The only thing we didn't have was an engine failure, and had an engine failure occurred, we could have had a catastrophic situation."
