TWO members of the East Manukau community lost their lives when an Air New Zealand plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off Perpignan, France, a year ago.
That fatal flight coincided with the anniversary of the Mt Erebus tragedy in late November 1979.
On-board the flight were Air New Zealand captain Brian Horrell, of Howick, and aircraft engineer Murray White from Pakuranga,
Christchurch aircraft engineers Michael Gyles and Noel Marsh, Civil Aviation Authority air-worthiness inspector Jeremy Cook, and two German pilots who were flying the aircraft also died.
The Airbus A320, owned by Air NZ, had been on lease to XL Airways of Germany for two years. It was being flown by XL to Frankfurt where it was due to be handed back to Air NZ for a ferry flight back to Aotearoa.
The Air NZ staff members were on-board as observers on the pre-acceptance flight.
The black-box data and cockpit recorders were recovered but were badly damaged.
They were sent to the North American manufacturer to determine what data could be extracted.
Immediately after the crash, Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe flew to Perpignan with Mr White’s partner Emma Gould and her mother Sue Bourke. They were joined later in the week by members of the other men’s families and friends.
A ceremony at Canet Beach was held for next of kin and airline staff in France. Air NZ staff performed a karakia and cultural ambassador Andrew Baker sang a waiata.
Other Kiwis who made the trip to France included representatives from the airline’s security safety investigations, A320 fleet and communications divisions, New Zealand Police, NZ Airline Pilots’ Association and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission.
“It was always his ambition to fly for Air NZ and in a lot of ways he lived his dreams,” Mr Horrell’s brother Nicol said after the service.
In early January, music icon Dave Dobbyn sang Welcome Home as family members who travelled to France for the release of the bodies were welcomed at Auckland International Airport, bringing with them the remains of their loved ones.
Mr White’s body was still missing at the time but he was found later in the month.
Despite having only just learned that the body had been found, Mr White’s family decided to push on with a memorial service, which packed out Bucklands Beach Yacht Club’s function centre.
“He swept me off my feet,” his partner Emma Gould told the gathering. “He told me he loved me before he kissed me. Either he was mad or very brave.”
Preliminary reports released by the French authorities at the end of February suggested that low-speed tests carried out by the air crew may have caused the crash.
Flight recorders showed the crew was trying to perform low-speed tests at a low altitude off Perpignan before flying to Frankfurt.
The last sound found on the flight recorder was that of a ground proximity alarm. The aircraft hit the sea at 263 knots.
Air NZ rejected suggestions that pilot error was behind the tragedy, saying a graph in the crash report appeared to show a failure of a crucial set of instruments that could have warned of a stall.
“The report provides a small insight into the failure of the number one and two stall-warning vanes on the aircraft at 32,000 feet, as well as selected information about activity in the cockpit.
“We expect the full report, which may not be completed for some time, to have detailed analysis of all factors that contributed to this tragic accident, so any lessons learned can be shared across the industry.”
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission said in June that it did not expect any further comment from the French Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses until the one-year anniversary of the crash.
