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 Erebus tragedy is remembered for the terrible loss of life, the demands of the recovery operation and the debate that raged over who or what was to blame.
This timeline lists New Zealand’s worst natural disasters, transport accidents, fires, mining accidents and other tragedies that have caused major loss of life.
Flight TE901 was classed as a domestic excursion flight, so passenger documentation was less rigorous than it would have been on an international flight. Some families had not known that their relative was on the flight.
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.