Back Erebus-vliegtuigramp Afrikaans طيران نيوزيلندا الرحلة 901 Arabic Yeni Zelandiya Hava Yolları reys 901 Azerbaijani Катастрофа в планината Еребус Bulgarian Air-New-Zealand-Flug 901 German Συντριβή στο όρος Έρεβος Greek Vuelo 901 de Air New Zealand Spanish Air New Zealandi lend 901 Estonian پرواز شماره ۹۰۱ ایر نیوزیلند Persian Air New Zealandin lento 901 Finnish
 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″S 167°27′30″E / 77.42500°S 167.45833°E |
| 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 left Auckland Airport in the morning and was supposed to 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, 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 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council later ruled that the finding of a conspiracy was a breach of natural justice and not supported by the evidence.
The accident is the deadliest 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.