Wherever it was, it was no longer in the air. The new flight plan took the aircraft directly over the mountain, rather than along its flank.
At 4.46 a.m. New Zealand Daylight Time (4.46 p.m. on the 27th local time), an Airbus A320-200 operated by German charter firm XL Airways and owned by Air New Zealand crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Perpignan, France. The memorial for the 16 passengers who were unidentifiable and the 28 whose bodies were never found is at A memorial to the crew members of Flight 901 is located adjacent to The book-length poem "Erebus" by American writer Jane Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015) memorialises a close friend who died in the tragedy, and in a feat of 'investigative poetry,’ explores the chain of flawed decisions that caused the crash.In 2019, it was announced that a national memorial is to be installed in The phrase "an orchestrated litany of lies" entered New Zealand popular culture for some years.The disaster features in the 5th season 2 episode of GPWS = Ground Proximity Warning System, CA = Captain, FE = Flight Engineer, CAM = Cockpit Area Micophone.Robertson, David. On 9 November 1979, 19 days before departure, the two pilots attended a briefing in which they were given a copy of the previous flight's The flight plan that had been approved in 1977 by the Civil Aviation Division of the New Zealand Department of Transport was along a track directly from Captain Leslie Simpson, the pilot of a flight on 14 November and also present at the 9 November briefing,The Navigation section changed the McMurdo waypoint co-ordinate stored in the ground computer system at approximately The computer program was altered such that the standard telex forwarded to US Air Traffic Controllers at the United States Antarctic science facility at The flight had earlier paused during the approach to McMurdo Sound to carry out a descent, via a figure-eight manoeuvre, through a gap in the low cloud base (later estimated to be at approximately 2,000 to 3,000 feet (610 to 910 m)) while over water to establish visual contact with surface landmarks and give the passengers a better view.The crew input the coordinates into the plane's computer before they departed at These new coordinates changed the flight plan to track 27 miles (43 km) east of their understanding. Air New Zealand’s one-day sightseeing flights to Antarctica began in 1977. We split the men into two shifts (12 hours on and 12 off), and recovered with great effort all the human remains at the site. The Mount Erebus disaster occurred on 28 November 1979 when Air New Zealand Flight 901 flew into Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board. In the first days on site we did not wash plates and utensils after eating but handed them on to the next shift because we were unable to wash them. Both the The accident report compiled by New Zealand's chief inspector of air accidents, Mahon's report, released on 27 April 1981, cleared the crew of blame for the disaster. "In 2009, Air New Zealand's CEO Rob Fyfe apologised to all those affected who did not receive appropriate support and compassion from the company following the incident, and unveiled a commemorative sculpture at its headquarters.On 28 November 2019, the 40 year anniversary of the disaster, New Zealand Prime Minister The registration of the crashed aircraft, ZK-NZP, has not been reissued. Hours later they were all dead. The operation lasted until 9 December 1979, with up to 60 recovery workers on site at a time. Air New Zealand had been operating scheduled Antarctic sightseeing flights between 1977 and 1979. Record keeping had to be meticulous because of the number and fragmented state of the human remains that had to be identified to the satisfaction of the The fact that we all spent about a week camped in polar tents amid the wreckage and dead bodies, maintaining a 24-hour work schedule says it all. Initially, there was very little water at the site and we had only one bowl between all of us to wash our hands in before eating.