THE crash of the Air New Zealand DC10 on Mt Erebus, in which 257 people lost their lives, remains indelibly imprinted on the memories of Kiwis old enough to remember the tragedy. Nearly everyone knew somebody on the flight.
Thirty years on and the memories are still raw, to the extent that each anniversary of the disaster continues to be dreaded by those who lost loved ones three decades ago.
One-day sightseeing flights to Antarctica began in 1977. They left from Auckland and passengers were treated to low-level views of the Ross Dependency before returning, with a brief refuelling stop at Christchurch.
On November 28, 1979, Air NZ flight TE901 left Auckland Airport for the 11-hour return flight.
On board were 237 passengers and 20 crew members.
At 12.30pm, TE901 was about 70km from McMurdo Station.
The McMurdo radio communications centre granted permission to descend to 3050 metres and proceed “visually”. Less than 20 minutes later, the flight deck’s altitude device began to blare a warning. Six seconds later the aircraft crashed into the side of Mt Erebus and disintegrated.
The following day wreckage was spotted on the slopes of the mountain. There were no survivors.
More than 60 people worked to recover bodies from the site and inspected the wreckage.
The operations took several weeks and, against heavy odds, all of the bodies were retrieved. Eventually 214 were identified.
The crash is regarded as New Zealand’s worst air accident.
AS WELL as the loss of life, Erebus is remembered for the debate that raged over who, or what, was to blame.
Pilot error was attributed by the chief inspector of air accidents, but Justice Peter Mahon’s Royal Commission of Inquiry disagreed.
Justice Mahon’s verdict – that airline executives and management had misled investigators via “an orchestrated litany of lies” – has made its mark in New Zealand history.
THE DC-10
A DAY trip to Antarctica was made possible by the DC-10 airliner’s great range and, at the time, its “unrivalled area navigation system”.
Production of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 ended in December 1988 after close to 20 years of service.
The DC-10 was a three-engine medium to long-range wide-body airliner with two engines mounted on underwing pylons and a third engine at the base of the vertical stabiliser.
The plane had a wide body fuselage designed to seat more than 250 passengers.
It was operated by a crew of three located on the flight deck in the nose on the same level as the passenger cabin.
It said that at the time of the crash the aircraft was flying at about 450m above sea level in white-out atmospheric conditions.
White-out occurs when the sun is filtered through cloud and reflects light from the snow making it impossible to distinguish ground from air.
The report found fault with the airline for inadequate pilot briefings and procedures, including a late flight-path alteration not mentioned to the crew.
But the main blame was placed on the pilots, especially the captain, who was criticised for descending to a low altitude when unsure of his position and unable to see the terrain.
Justice Mahon, in his 1981 report, said the state-owned airline was primarily to blame for changing the flight plan without telling the crew.
The omission resulted in the aircraft flying towards Mt Erebus instead of down McMurdo Sound.
He asserted the airline had intentionally misled the inquiry.
A Court of Appeal judgement in December 1981 ruled that Justice Mahon had exceeded his terms of reference in suggesting a criminal conspiracy to whitewash the inquiry.
He subsequently resigned from his position on the bench.
In October 1983, the Privy Council upheld the Court of Appeal decision.
A long-time advocate for the work Captain Gordon Vette did for the Mahon inquiry was Pakuranga MP Maurice Williamson.
He was Minister of Transport and had worked at Air New Zealand as a corporate planner at the time of the crash. He tabled the Mahon Report in Parliament in 1999 “because of the lessons it taught”.
But some involved in the accident investigation, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry, argued that Mr Williamson should also be tabling the judgements of the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council.
Whether the pilots or the airline were responsible remains a subject of intense debate.
