Antarctic airliner crash remembered
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) It was billed as the "flight of a lifetime" — an Air New Zealand DC10 cruising on a sightseeing tour over the pristine icy wilderness of Antarctica.
But the joy of the Nov. 28, 1979 trip turned to horror when the plane slammed into the side of an active Antarctic volcano — Mt. Erebus — killing all 257 on board in New Zealand's worst aviation disaster.
Now, 25 years after the crash that killed 200 New Zealanders, 24 Japanese, 22 U.S. citizens, 6 Britons, 2 Canadians, and one Australian, one French and one Swiss national, the man who led efforts to recover their bodies from the icy wasteland is still haunted by the carnage he saw.
"I think about it every day," police inspector Greg Gilpin told The Associated Press. "When you see ... the aircraft and the human destruction we saw there, you never forget it."
Erebus recovery worker Hugh Logan, now head of the nation's Department of Conservation, said all that was left was "a big black smear up the side of the mountain. ... and the completeness of the devastation."
Among those planning to attend a memorial ceremony Sunday below a commemorative cross on the slopes of Mt. Erebus is Sir Edmund Hillary, who is best known for teaming with Tenzing Norgay of Nepal on 1953 to become the first to climb Mount Everest. (Related story: Hillary opposes U.S. South Pole Road)
Hillary, who also is the first man to drive a tractor to the South Pole, had been scheduled to act as a commentator on the ill-fated flight, but was forced to pull out due to work commitments in the United States.
An inquiry ruled that the disaster happened because Air New Zealand's Flight Operations Center changed coordinates on the plane's navigation computer without telling the crew.
That mix-up combined with whiteout conditions meant that the first the crew knew of the collision course they were on was when the plane's ground proximity warning system sounded in the cockpit, warning them to climb.
After 11 seconds calmly debating why they appeared to be so close to the ground and moving to climb, the plane slammed at full speed into the snow and ice-covered mountainside.
Whiteout occurs when high cloud blots out the sun and the bright light washes out landscape contrasts and shadows, destroying a pilot's perception of depth or distance.
The phenomenon makes it "impossible to perceive the boundary between land and cloud," former Air New Zealand pilot Gordon Vette said in his book "Impact Erebus."
Former air force squadron commander Bob Henderson, who flew three seasons in the Antarctic, said the Erebus disaster "heightened the awareness of this (phenomenon) as a risk ... as a threat," and "people became more aware this could be a significant issue" for fliers.
The airliner's impact was so powerful that, in the days before DNA testing, the remains of 44 of the victims were never identified.
Air New Zealand scrapped Antarctic flights that day, and the carrier has never been back.
"Air New Zealand has no plans to resume sightseeing flights to Antarctica," corporate communications manager Mike Tod said.
However, Croydon Travel in Australia is offering four flights this season, beginning with one New Year's Eve, on a Qantas Airways Ltd., Boeing 747 from Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, with no landing in Antarctica. The company began the flights in 1994.
(Contributing: Jack Williams, USATODAY.com)
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