The Erebus disaster
- When
- 28 November 1979
- Where
- Departed Auckland Airport · Tāmaki Makaurau
- Reach
- Nationwide
An Air New Zealand sightseeing flight to Antarctica flew into Mount Erebus in whiteout conditions. All 257 people aboard died.
The flight plan coordinates had been changed the night before without the crew being told, putting the aircraft on a track towards the mountain rather than down McMurdo Sound. The initial inquiry blamed the pilots. Justice Peter Mahon’s royal commission found the airline had altered the flight path and then attempted to conceal it, in a passage about ‘an orchestrated litany of lies’ that became famous. It remains New Zealand’s deadliest single accident; the Crown apologised in 2019.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
Related
The influenza pandemic
About 9,000 people died in two months — roughly half as many as died in four years of war. Māori died at more than seven times the Pākehā rate.
The Springbok tour
Fifty-six days that split the country. Protesters occupied the pitch at Hamilton and stopped the game; by the final test, police in riot gear fought crowds outside Eden Park.
Rugby Park, HamiltonRogernomics — the economy is deregulated
A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets — the fastest liberalisation in the developed world.
The 1987 sharemarket crash
The New Zealand market fell further than almost any other and took years longer to recover, wiping out a generation of small investors.
Auckland