On 28 November 1979, 237 passengers and 20 crew were killed when Air New Zealand Flight TE901 crashed into the side of Mt Erebus, Antarctica. The tragedy was followed by a demanding recovery operation and a raging debate over who or what was to blame
12 February 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Penguin, NZ's worst 20th century maritime disaster. The disasters timeline provides a quick overview of our worst natural disasters, transport accidents, fires, mining accidents and other tragedies that have caused major loss of life.
In this page from Air New Zealand's The Antarctic experience brochure, Mt Erebus – the 'sentinel of McMurdo' – is clearly visible from the DC-10's cockpit.
The bodies of the victims of Air New Zealand Flight TE901 were flown by Royal New Zealand Air Force Hercules aircraft to Whenuapai Air Base in Auckland.
By the time the second flight carrying bodies from the Erebus disaster crash site arrived on 10 December 1979 the pathology teams tasked with determining cause of death had completed post mortem examinations on the first 114 bodies