Debris from the DC-10's fuselage photographed in 2004: Most of the wreckage of Flight 901 remains at the accident site.
Accident
Date
28 November 1979
Summary
Controlled flight into terrain
Site
Mount Erebus, Antarctica 77°25′30″S167°27′30″E / 77.42500°S 167.45833°E / -77.42500; 167.45833
Aircraft
Aircraft type
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30
Operator
Air New Zealand
Call sign
NEW ZEALAND 901
Registration
ZK-NZP
Flight origin
Auckland International Airport
1st stopover
Non-stop flight over Antarctica
Last stopover
Christchurch International Airport
Destination
Auckland International Airport
Occupants
257
Passengers
237
Crew
20
Fatalities
257
Survivors
0
The Mount Erebus disaster occurred on 28 November 1979 when Air New Zealand Flight 901 (TE901)[nb 1] flew into Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board.[1][2] Air New Zealand had been operating scheduled Antarctic sightseeing flights since 1977. This flight was supposed to leave Auckland Airport in the morning and spend a few hours flying over the Antarctic continent, before returning to Auckland in the evening via Christchurch.
The initial investigation concluded the accident was caused primarily by pilot error, but public outcry led to the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the crash. The commission, presided over by Justice Peter Mahon QC, concluded that the accident was primarily caused by a correction made to the coordinates of the flight path the night before the disaster, coupled with a failure to inform the flight crew of the change, with the result that the aircraft, instead of being directed by computer down McMurdo Sound (as the crew had been led to believe), was instead rerouted to a path toward Mount Erebus. Justice Mahon's report accused Air New Zealand of presenting "an orchestrated litany of lies", and this led to changes in senior management at the airline. The Privy Council later ruled that the finding of a conspiracy was a breach of natural justice and not supported by the evidence.[citation needed]
The accident is the deadliest accident in the history of Air New Zealand, the deadliest aviation accident in Antarctica and one of New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disasters.
Cite error: There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}} template (see the help page).
^Accident description for ZK-NZP at the Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved on 24 August 2011.
^"DC-10 playbacks awaited". Flight International: 1987. 15 December 1979. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. At press time no information had been released concerning the flightdata and cockpit-voice recorder of Air New Zealand McDonnell Douglas DC-10 ZK-NZP which crashed on Mount Erebus on 28 November.
and 22 Related for: Mount Erebus disaster information
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