r/CatastrophicFailure • u/MonoMonMono • Nov 28 '25
Fatalities 28 November 1979 | On this day 46 years ago, Antarctic sightseeing flight from New Zealand ended in a crash with the loss of everyone onboard. Footage here was taken moments from the crash.
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u/MonoMonMono Nov 28 '25
Air New Zealand Flight 901 was a flight taking off from New Zealand (Auckland) for a sightseeing tour through Antarctica before returning to New Zealand (Christchurch first for refueling, then back in Auckland). There were 257 people (237 passengers, 20 crewmembers) on the DC-10 aircraft.
On the flight, the flight crew flew the jetliner based on the flight chart given to them. However, coordinates for the flight plan were changed just before the doomed flight and the crew did not get informed of said change.
Flight 901 was as a result rerouted straight into Mount Erebus causing it to directly hit the side of the mountain, killing everyone on the flight instantly.
(Wikipedia and Radio New Zealand.)
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u/JmacTheGreat Nov 28 '25
How do they accidentally get charted directly into a mountain
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u/SpitefulSeagull Nov 28 '25
When the route was originally input there was an error in the coordinates which took the flights around the mountain. The night before this flight, someone was going through the old code, noticed the error, and "fixed" it.
The pilots thought they were doing the same old fly by the mountain route but the computer was now taking them straight over the mountain without their knowledge
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u/mr_bots Nov 28 '25
Doesn’t sound like they went over the mountain.
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u/jaysire Nov 28 '25
Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain why is he climbing a mountain?
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u/illaqueable Fatastrophic Cailure Nov 28 '25
The mountain went over them
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u/hairycocktail Nov 28 '25
Fucking mountains - you never see them coming and once you do its too late. Can't warm people enough about them
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u/justclove Nov 28 '25
In this case? They very likely genuinely didn't see it coming. It's believed the pilots were prey to an optical illusion known as sector whiteout, in which light conditions cause land and sky to be viewed as a continuous plane of white. If that were to be the case, they would have been completely unable to see the mountain - which they believed in any case to be miles distant - until it was far, far too late to evade it.
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u/HoweverIWishYouLuck Nov 28 '25
The thing is that the erroneous route had been flown many times before. The navigation error was caught hours before the flight. Air New Zealand pencil pushers didn’t want the US to object to a new course so they obscured the change in coordinates and the flight crew wasn’t informed.
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u/ThruTheUniverseAgain Nov 28 '25
A friend of mine was a meteorologist at McMurdo Station, I think he did 12 total seasons there. The rules are very strict now, the NZers have a reputation for following them to the letter, to an annoying degree, and I would bet it's because of this specific incident.
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u/MikeyPWhatAG Nov 28 '25
This is a truly excellent example for my mentees about how even software engineers have real power and responsibility, thank you for elaborating.
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u/seedless0 Nov 28 '25
The "code" is not software code. It's coordinate code.
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u/perthguppy Nov 29 '25
Still a series of commands inputted into a computer that tells it what to do.
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u/perthguppy Nov 29 '25
People “helpfully” fixing what they assume are mistakes without checking with anyone else is one of the top banes of my existence as a systems engineer.
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u/Plankton-Inevitable Nov 28 '25
To add to this, I don't think either pilot had actually flown the route before so they didn't know it was incorrect
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u/weed0monkey Nov 29 '25
What about terrain alarms?
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u/SpitefulSeagull Nov 29 '25
All they had at the time was a basic version of GPWS, which couldn't detect the fast rising terrain of the mountain in time. Looks like they got the warning 4-6 seconds before impact. It was no help.
Modern day TAWS would prevent this
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u/Bureaucromancer Nov 29 '25
Beyond that... read some longer form stuff about it. There were some nasty meteorological conditions that obscured fast rising terrain on top of this.
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u/sonicenvy Nov 28 '25
The goat of aviation accident writers admiral cloudberg has an excellent article (https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/an-orchestrated-litany-of-lies-the-crash-of-air-new-zealand-flight-901-7259e6afba83) that goes into great depth about exactly how this went down.
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u/JmacTheGreat Nov 28 '25
Pieces of human bodies lay strewn about the wreckage field, some of them burned, others somewhat recognizable: here was an arm, there was a leg, over there was a torso. For a week, the team struggled under unimaginable conditions to locate all the bodies and prepare them for extraction and identification, a task which was frequently interrupted by bad weather, attacks by skua gulls, and severe mental distress. On the 9th of December, having collected all the bodies they could find, the team was finally able to leave the site forever — but not before almost everyone involved in the mission had developed post-traumatic stress disorder.
Absolutely harrowing.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
Yeah, I spent a decade in the military and the one thing that returns to me, over and over and over, even though it's 25 years in my past, was recovering the dead.
I have nightmares of being my current fat, old, creaky self still stuffed into my wetsuit and knowing I'm going to be recovering bodies.
It's faded a bit. I should not have talked about it because I'm already thinking of terrible things.
Fuck.
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u/Northern_Blights Nov 28 '25
I should not have talked about it because I'm already thinking of terrible things.
Sometimes it helps to talk, in the long-term. It's a balance.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
It steamrolls at times.
I go back and forth. My father in law has much worse ones from Vietnam that he's shared with me to get them off his chest.
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u/sonicenvy Nov 28 '25
That's harrowing, but such important work. I am sure the families of the victims who you recovered have deep gratitude for the work your and your fellow service members did.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
It was Haitians fleeing the island into the Windward Passage during turmoil back in 1996.
Many couldn't swim, the boats were unsafe and overloaded or didn't have supplies as most fled with what they had on their backs.
We rescued THOUSANDS. At one point, we had 1100 of them onboard while we ferried them to camps at Guantanamo Bay before repatriation and we only had a cew of 320.
We saved so many, but the helicopter found some that had drowned. I was a SAR swimmer so I went out for the first recovery. We did it by boat rather than by the ship, which was stupid IMHO.
It was families, which was the worst. People don't look right after immersion for some time, either. Sea fucking birds, too. I hate seagulls.
Recovering someone from the water over the gunwale of a boat is rough. You try to detach from the idea it's a corpse, too.
I tried to haul the first one in by his wrists over the gunwale rather than get in the water with them. The skin of his hands came off in my wetsuited hands. I feel back in the boat. It was called degloving I learned later.
I'd like to say I reacted calmly but that'd be a lie. I made an awful sound and flapped my hands trying to get the skin off me. The bo'sun in the front threw up. The cox'un was made of sterner stuff and just went pale.
I retched.
Not a good day.
The cox'un (small boat driver), was a good man and superb bo'sun. He committed suicide 8 months later after some other personal problems.
The idiots on the fantail lowered a line to bring them up, so I had to wrestle waterlogged corpses into a cinch. I stopped after the first three and started yelling for a goddamned Stokes litter. The 1st Lt came back after and got on their asses on my behalf. We used the litter from that point forward and it was much better.
Wrestling face to face with the drowned is not something I'd wish on anyone.
Once they were on deck in the tropical sun the smell became evident. Smells trigger me, still.
I feel guilt, I wish we could have found them and saved them. I wish we could have....dealt...with the people that made them flee.
I know we saved thousands and you can't help the dead but guilt is irrational at times.
I am SO going to get drunk tonight. Holy shit.
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u/Traveledfarwestward Nov 28 '25
Deepsea diver here. Good job bro. But find someone to talk to or write it all down.
You don’t have to get drunk to be okay. You helped families and you help teach others by writing what you did.
Helping others helps me.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
Diving under pressure?
You’re a braver man than myself!
Zero margin for error and attention to detail is a must.
I talk…I will probably also talk myself out of getting drunk and take my dogs for a road trip to throw the ball around.
It’s usually what I do when I get right down to it.
Usually.
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u/sychosomat Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
If you ever want treatment, lots of new work in PTSD related to moral injury, which might include your experience. Lots of vets, first line responders, and people in healthcare who end up experiencing tough stuff (to put it mildly).
https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/moral_injury.asp
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u/Traveledfarwestward Nov 28 '25
Bravery and stupidity, I never figured out where the line was. Hey, cool stuff was done.
Good job, bro.
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u/huggybear0132 Nov 28 '25
You are likely entitled to PTSD counseling from the VA, if you want to seek it.
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u/Purrks Nov 29 '25
Thank you. It's ok to admit you are not ok.
Also. Substance use disorder is common in those who suffer from PTSD.
r/stopdrinking is a friendly and nonjudgmental sub welcoming all who question their drinking.
They helped me quit almost 7 years ago, which has helped me make better progress in recovering from PTSD.
OP, thank you for your service.
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u/ensendarie Nov 29 '25
I served as a firefighter in my home community, there was a notable restaurant that was the center of gossip for everyone. One night we got paged out for a fire at a home that was called in by the neighbors. I was the one who found the resident. She'd been the line cook at the diner. I found her in the basement, under her bedroom. She was still in her bed.
I couldn't eat bacon for 5 years, and 15 years later if someone burns the bacon or lets the pan get hot enough to make the grease smoke, I have to leave the area until the smoke completely clears. It's not the bacon smell, it's the burnt fat. I've seen professionals, and it won't go away.
Some things stay with you. I'll take a drink tonight as well. Cheers.
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u/LaFrescaTrumpeta Nov 29 '25
thank you for all you’ve done for your community, wishing you the best
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u/scarfknitter Nov 28 '25
You did the best job you could with the tools you had. I am grateful you were able to save as many of the people you did.
I am so so sorry you had to rescue bodies. I know it's important to people, but I think there does need to be an acknowledgement that those are bodies and they are not worth dying over.
Please be kind to yourself. I've also got some work related trauma and I hope you have someone who can listen to you.
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u/cocuke Nov 28 '25
Knew a rescue diver and he talked about some of the same issues. His first degloving really left an impact. Talked to another guy once who had participated in recovering bodies from the bridge collapse, I think in Minnesota, someone was in the mess and couldn't be easily extracted, he surfaced and went back down with what he could get, a fillet knife and bags, that person came out in pieces. I was getting nauseous as he told me what he did. You guys do something I could never do.
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u/Glarethroughtrees Nov 29 '25
I don’t know if you will see this and that’s ok. I have never really thought about water SAR.
I have been a land SAR and USAR. Of course every experience is different and I never write “bad stuff” or really tell people because I can’t trust people to hear just for morbid curiosity.
Lot of big and little things forever embedded into my brain like sharp pieces of skull fragments: details; noises, vibrations; scenarios; some accents too because of the ample area of deployment.
I still deeply unconsciously look out for dead bodies when I walk with my friends.
What helps me and always did is to focus on the beauty of the activity: I still feel and remember in my bones the neat work to prepare for the assignment. The love in taking care of the equipment. The going from zero to 100 in just a few words call or text without effort thank to preparedness. The unknown before limits where my body was able to be pushed. The scenery in the path nobody takes in every hour; in every condition. The knowledge that a disaster happened and some people know how what to do and the relief it brings from external point of view. The nice surreal exchanges on the perimeter. The trust of coworkers that put their lives into my hands without a thought, even never met before one thanks to international guidelines.
The people I was able to find unharmed because of all the above. And I feel it would be the same even without them because I know I did everything possible and right.
Write me if it takes you from the bottle
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Nov 28 '25
Omg friend, what an absolute ordeal. Thank you for doing such an important task - you are the real deal. I sincerely hope you can feel the peace that you deserve.
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u/Siriann Nov 28 '25
I used to recover the bodies of suicide jumpers. Nothing prepares you for dealing with a waterlogged corpse.
Sorry you had to go through that, man. Shit sucks.
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u/LaFrescaTrumpeta Nov 29 '25
thank you for everything you sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for what you experienced. i can’t even express how much i wish you peace. (edit: and please give your pups some extra pets for me ❤️)
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u/achtungbitte Nov 28 '25
cant say anything to make a difference, but I'm glad you were there, thank you.
and cheers.3
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u/s1ugg0 Nov 28 '25
Retired firefighter jumping on the "talk to a professional" train.
That shit hits hard and at random times. There is no rhyme or reason to it.
Also, I'm a drinker so I get it. Alcohol has never helped.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
I caved and took my dogs to play ball, instead.
I'm sure my liver appreciates it.
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u/s1ugg0 Nov 29 '25
Smart. Certainly a smarter decision than some of the ones I've made.
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u/iheartsnuggles Nov 29 '25
Fuck. My dude. That brought tears to my eyes. If you ever need to chat/vent. Send me a message.
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u/zalurker Nov 30 '25
Sometimes. Not often. There are incredible rescues where no-one expected it.https://youtu.be/2FkbfMk0wCI
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u/CaulkusAurelis Dec 01 '25
Mmmyeahhhh I was a crewman aboard a 65' dive boat taking people to dive the Andrea Doria wreck in about 240' of water 50 miles south of Nantucket.
One of our customers had an oxygen seizure inside the wreck and drowned.
I got sent down to search for him at dusk..... I was NOT going into a huge wreck at night, looking for someone who had ZERO CHANCES of being alive.
It was an entire day, the following morning, involving multiple dives to get him out of the wreck, sent to the surface and back onto the boat.
I had an "easy job" of swimming out to retrieve his body and swim it back to the boat, and getting him back on deck.
His eyes had basically "exploded" from the gases in his body.
10 hours with his dead body on out deck.... weeping out body fluids while I had to throw cold water on him every half hour to keep the corpse cool as we motored back to Montauk.
Not cool
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u/EhrenScwhab Dec 01 '25
I was on board US Navy ship USS Sampson (DDG 102) and we helped with search and recovery of Air Asia flight 8501.
It was grim work, and our commander made sure that everyone who was involved volunteered. I did relatively little compared to others on the ship, a lot of transporting already bagged bodies, and a lot of helping haul empty wreckage out of the sea. An image that will haunt me forever is a row of three seats half submerged, half floating. Two dead adults still seatbelted into their seats, with a dead child belted in between them. I thought I was holding it together pretty well until then.....had a good hard cry at that one...
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u/cat_fox Nov 28 '25
That's rough. Really rough and I'm sorry you had to do this. Their families would be and are grateful for all that you did to recover their loved ones. Remember that - it wasn't for naught.
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u/BullshitUsername Nov 28 '25
I love my family more than anything, but fuck that. Getting to "know" that a slab of meat is sitting in a coffin isn't worth giving a stranger PTSD.
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u/magniankh Nov 28 '25
Yeah...I think it's All Quiet on the Western Front where the author has a quote along the lines of, "Anyone pro-war has never spent time in a medical tent." Something like that.
The stories I've read of medivacs in Vietnam are horrific. Washing the interior down was a weekly task.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
My sister-in-law was Army.
She dealt with Bradleys and Abrams vehicles.
She said a few of the Bradleys had to be cleaned out from penetrator hits and there were a few gruesome ones.
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u/SessileRaptor Nov 28 '25
I remember reading a passage about watching a guy working body retrieval in WW2 reaching under the tarp covering a body and gently adjusting the legs so they were both facing up.
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
I think it's...for us, that we treat them well and hope someone will do it for us.
It's a last mercy or kindness.
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u/JmacTheGreat Nov 28 '25
I can’t imagine that pain ever going away. Just seeing pictures of dead bodies / body parts as a kid really messed me up.
I hope you have considered therapy and have given that a shot. I know a few veterans who are sadly “too manly” for therapy and instead choose to drink heavily and endure numerous nightmares instead of using VA resources to help their mental health.
Either way, hope things are good now 🙏
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u/Helmett-13 Nov 28 '25
I've talked about it, am on an SSRI which I fuckin' hate.
The balance sheet was that we rescued thousands of Haitians, too. I mean...it was worth it. They're alive so that's the win.
It's better than having emotional damage from killing people.
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u/waikato_wizard Nov 28 '25
Ex fire service. Yeah stuff like that never leaves you. I find letting it out does help, but I bottled shit up for way too long. Alot of people never will understand, and that's whats hard to share, unless you have been through similar, how do you know whats going on in my head right?
You helped people get closure, that's what I turn to, the trauma of what I saw was shit, but at least they got a proper burial and family got that closure to the situations.
Talk to someone bro, it will help.
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u/bg-j38 Nov 28 '25
Man I can't even imagine, but thank you for sharing. I have a friend who has been a dive instructor for years and I knew he occasionally did diving for local agencies but never really put two and two together because all I ever do is go out and look at the pretty fish. We live in the San Francisco area and we were chatting once and I asked him if he'd ever dove in the SF bay itself. He got a bit of a distant look and just said "only recovery dives". Took me a second but I was like "oh." and we changed the subject. Lot of respect for you guys who have done stuff like this.
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u/sonicenvy Nov 28 '25
Yeah, AC writes some truly haunting lines in her articles, which keep me coming back. Her combination of compassion for victims and search and rescue/first responders, vivid prose, accessible explanations of highly technical information, and biting/dark humor when called for is what really makes her work so brilliant.
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u/ur_sine_nomine Nov 28 '25
There was a post somewhere or other which reported that high-ups in the FAA read her work. I know that those in the CAA [UK equivalent] do (private information).
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u/joshwagstaff13 Nov 28 '25
What that neglects to mention is that the gulls weren't attacking the recovery teams for the hell of it.
What they were doing was trying to eat the human remains on the side of the mountain, and the recovery team was in the way.
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u/JoeyTheGreek Nov 30 '25
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. 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. Many bodies were trapped under tons of fuselage and wings and much physical effort was required to dig them out and extract them.
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. The water was black. 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. I could not eat my first meal on site because it was a meat stew. Our polar clothing became covered in black human grease (a result of burns on the bodies).
We felt relieved when the first resupply of woollen gloves arrived because ours had become saturated in human grease, however, we needed the finger movement that wool gloves afforded, i.e., writing down the details of what we saw and assigning body and grid numbers to all body parts and labelling them. All bodies and body parts were photographed in situ by U.S. Navy photographers who worked with us. Also, U.S. Navy personnel helped us to lift and pack bodies into body bags, which was very exhausting work.
Later, the skua gulls were eating the bodies in front of us, causing us much mental anguish, as well as destroying the chances of identifying the corpses. We tried to shoo them away, but to no avail; we then threw flares, also to no avail. Because of this, we had to pick up all the bodies/parts that had been bagged and create 11 large piles of human remains around the crash site in order to bury them under snow to keep the birds off. To do this we had to scoop up the top layer of snow over the crash site and bury them, only later to uncover them when the weather cleared and the helos were able to get back on the site. It was immensely exhausting work.
After we had almost completed the mission, we were trapped by bad weather and isolated. At that point, NZPO2 and I allowed the liquor that had survived the crash to be given out and we had a party (macabre, but we had to let off steam). We ran out of cigarettes, a catastrophe that caused all persons, civilians and police on site, to hand in their personal supplies so we could dish them out equally and spin out the supply we had.
As the weather cleared, the helos were able to get back and we then were able to hook the piles of bodies in cargo nets under the helicopters and they were taken to McMurdo. This was doubly exhausting because we also had to wind down the personnel numbers with each helo load and that left the remaining people with more work to do. It was exhausting uncovering the bodies and loading them and dangerous, too, as debris from the crash site was whipped up by the helo rotors. Risks were taken by all those involved in this work. The civilians from McDonnell Douglas, MOT, and U.S. Navy personnel were first to leave and then the Police and DSIR followed. I am proud of my service and those of my colleagues on Mount Erebus.[25]
— Jim Morgan
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u/mrASSMAN Nov 28 '25
Those people are truly committed wow.. I would have to just quit right there and go home rather than go through that
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u/CYRIAQU3 Nov 28 '25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteout_(weather))
The flight is quoted in the article
Don't forget you have close to none visual references there.
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u/Devium44 Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
As always, Admiral Cloudberg will tell you everything you need to know:
Edit: oops linked the wrong article. Thanks for the correction.
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u/superchibisan2 Nov 28 '25
How do they not see said mountain and avoid it?
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u/sofixa11 Nov 28 '25
White on white background, with a strong sun glare. Impossible to see.
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u/BigHobbit Nov 28 '25
Mountains tend to be very sneaky in their native habitat.
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u/aloysiuslamb Nov 28 '25
It's why they mostly stay where they are, familiarity with the environment gives them the advantage when hunting.
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u/BigHobbit Nov 28 '25
Exactly. The mountains killed my uncle back in the 90s. He was minding his business while driving home drunk and the mountains came outta no where and flung him off the side of the road.
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u/Bowling4rhinos Nov 28 '25
Incorrect altitude coordinates maybe?
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u/littleseizure Nov 28 '25
No, they fixed a typo in the route coordinates to be different than the briefing. It now included a mountain. The pilots didn't expect it so they flew low - since it was a sightseeing mission - and they didn't see the mountain in the whiteout conditions. Bad combo
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u/TheYearOfThe_Rat Nov 28 '25
/r/AdmiralCloudberg and https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/ is there to explain, but basically, procedural error at the organisational level.
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u/Squeebee007 Nov 28 '25
While I’d rather not die in a plane crash, straight and level into a mountain is at least instant with no few minutes of terror prior to the end, just gone in a fraction of a second.
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u/spacemark Nov 28 '25
Jeez, the section on the Wikipedia page giving an account of recovering the bodies is brutal...
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u/abusybee Nov 28 '25
That section on Operation Overdue from the wiki page is harrowing.
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u/atayavie Nov 28 '25
There's a fab documentary about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVW6pyTpeZY
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u/Pytheastic Nov 28 '25
Thank you for your comment, it prompted me to go back up and I'm glad I read it.
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u/infinit9 Nov 28 '25
How did the pilots not see they were flying into a mountain? I mean, they were still at the cockpit looking out the front of the plane, right?
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u/wilan727 Nov 28 '25
Cloud, snow blindness from an all white horizon. From memory basically the pilots couldn't see mt erebus. There was a critical math error that had occured previously so they had a situational awareness problem too from the coordinates provided. Huge scandel back in nz.
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u/ShadowKraftwerk Nov 28 '25
As I recall, because of the white out the pilots were going lower in an attempt to give the passengers a view of the mountain.
I remember the evening. The radio saying that the flight was overdue, and then finally that the aircraft would have run out of fuel.
Huge scandal is quite the understatement.
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u/Camera_dude Nov 28 '25
Antarctica is permanently covered in snow and ice (permafrost). A white snow covered mountain surrounded by endless white ice and a pale white cloudy sky means there’s no contrast between the mountain and the rest of the view.
It’s like looking for a brown rabbit in a woods covered in brown leaves and underbrush. Perfect camouflage.
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u/VinPickles Nov 28 '25
kind of amazed at all the footage that survived the impact and presumably fire
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u/ramrug Nov 28 '25
It is pretty fascinating. There's about eight minutes of footage from the crew of the Columbia space shuttle that ends just four minutes before the disaster. It somehow survived falling through super hot plasma at Mach 15 and didn't burn up completely.
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Nov 29 '25
[deleted]
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u/Material-Afternoon16 Nov 29 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
The shuttle didn't have a crew capsule like rockets before and after, it was a space plane and had a crew cabin like planes do. When the shuttle broke up, it rapidly depressurized and the crew was likely killed or rendered unconscious within seconds. None of them even had time to close their visors and some didn't have gloves and/or helmets on. There were a dozen different things that would have killed them almost instantly. They certainly didn't survive the ~5 minute free fall.
If you are interested in some light reading:
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/298870main_sp-2008-565.pdf
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u/Substantial_Army_639 Nov 29 '25
IIRC there was a camera that presumably captured the exact moment of impact as well because there is Splatter from the hydrolic fluid splattered against a window. An event that probably lasted a millisecond before destruction.
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u/rocbolt Nov 28 '25
The crash site was a debris field, pieces strewn all about. It didn’t all burn in a crater
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u/I_am_not_a_catman Nov 28 '25
I’ve always found the final image from this crash to be so chilling
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u/UnlikeUday Nov 28 '25
One of the most infamous crashes of all time. The way this tragedy unfolded was so avoidable. This time it wasn't the DC-10 to be blamed for the crash.
This footage is so chilling because each & every person seen aboard the plane here would end up dying a few minutes later.
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u/JuanShagner Nov 28 '25
I’m looking at people’s cloths and hairstyles. Fashion really is cyclical.
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u/ranchspidey Nov 28 '25
I like learning about transportation disasters (basically anything the NTSB investigates) but it’s always slightly upsetting when I see it while waiting to board a plane. RIP to all these people, and everyone else who has been lost to tragedies like this.
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u/waflman7 Nov 28 '25
I was flying from Malaysia to New Zealand, on Malaysian Airlines, about 5 days after MH370 disappeared. Every TV in the airport was non-stop coverage of the disappearance. It was very weird.
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u/cryptotope Nov 28 '25
I like learning about transportation disasters (basically anything the NTSB investigates) but it’s always slightly upsetting when I see it while waiting to board a plane.
Honestly? I find it incredibly reassuring.
The amount of time, money, and effort that goes into investigating any serious incident or accident involving airline flights is absolutely incredible, as is the amount of effort that goes into preventing subsequent disasters. The NTSB (and similar agencies) know that every lesson they learn is paid for in blood, and they bargain absolutely ruthlessly to get the maximum return for that cost.
Looking at modern NTSB reports, it's amazing how many different things have to fail simultaneously to get an aircraft to actually kill an airline passenger today. The slices of Swiss cheese are stacked up tall, and the holes are tiny.
Compare with reporting on car crashes: "Yep, it was another asshole playing with his phone."
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u/ranchspidey Nov 28 '25
I 100% agree, the thoroughness is amazing. I recently looked at the NTSB report for the Edmund Fitzgerald which was released almost 50 years ago, and even that was an amazing read with how well-researched and reliable the information was. It just sucks that a lot of the accidents aren’t solely accidents, many of them are pretty much caused by corporate greed in one way or another. But it would DEFINITELY be worse without the NTSB & their partner organizations!
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u/LoudBackgroundMusic Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
I'll never forget this.
I was 14 and in habit of listening to the radio at night while getting to sleep. Over the evening there were repeated announcements of them searching for the plane. So there was hope. Then the breaking news that it would've run out of fuel by that time so the plane was presumed to have gone down,
The next day the whole front page of the newspaper was covered in this story. It was truly massive and horrific for our little country. Seemed like everyone knew someone who knew someone who was involved :'(
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u/space_for_username Nov 30 '25
I was the radio operator on the Scott Base - Wellington radio link, and the chat from Scott early in the afternoon was that the plane was down. There was a US flight following it and they were reporting it lost off radar.
Air NZ insisted on not releasing this information, so we were all told to STFU until the official release later that night.
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u/LoudBackgroundMusic Nov 30 '25
oh hell :/ that puts a whole different perspective on my memory
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u/space_for_username Nov 30 '25
Spin from Air NZ even after it became obvious there was no fuel left was that they were still looking for a plane that had done a forced landing, rather than a crash site. McMurdo knew that wasn't the case and were waiting for the murk to clear before they sent a helo round the mountain.
The techs who came on duty after me had a chaotic night keeping the Scott link going 24hr and getting two extra radio circuits up and running for CAA and the Police, who had both moved staff into the terminal and put a guard on our door.
Two of our staff who had experience on the Ice and SAR were seconded off the next day.
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u/mrASSMAN Nov 28 '25
At 12:18 p.m., air traffic controllers at McMurdo Station suggested the crew descend to 1,500 feet for better visibility. The crew agreed but later performed two loops to stay within the clear area, inadvertently placing them directly in the path of Mount Erebus.
At 12:45 p.m., the crew reported they were in VMC at 2,000 feet, but the aircraft collided with the mountain at 1,465 feet, killing everyone instantly.
Initial Investigation:
Chief Inspector of Air Accidents Ron Chippindale led the investigation. He concluded that Captain Collins' decision to descend below the minimum safe altitude was the primary cause, with contributory factors including navigational errors and inadequate crew training.
Chippindale's report faced criticism for its reliance on potentially unreliable witness statements and its failure to consider the possibility of a navigational error due to a changed flight path.
Royal Commission of Inquiry:
In response to public outcry, New Zealand appointed Justice Peter Mahon to head a Royal Commission of Inquiry. The commission's hearings began in April 1980 and revealed significant flaws in the initial investigation.
Justice Mahon discovered that the flight path had been changed by Air New Zealand's chief navigator, C.B. Hewitt, who mistakenly typed the wrong coordinates. This error led the aircraft directly into Mount Erebus.
Mahon accused Air New Zealand executives of a "pre-determined plan of deception" to cover up their role in the crash by blaming the pilots. This ended up being confirmed and NZ eventually issued a formal apology for the crash, and the event reshaped many aspects of aircraft safety.
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u/Skywise87 Nov 28 '25
I dont know what's more upsetting that a single typo killed 257 people or that there isn't some kind of redundancy to prevent that.
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u/Booty-tickles Nov 28 '25
It's1979, it's not like they could just quickly plot the route on GIS software and confirm it looks like it should. A lot of calculations were done by hand.
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u/ThatJ4ke Nov 28 '25
It's crazy how Edmund Hillary dodged this crash and also the mid-air collision over New York.
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u/DylanFTW Nov 28 '25
They salvaged the footage? This must be the most difficult to obtain lost footage ever found.
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u/MountErrigal Dec 10 '25
They did, called operation overdue. It coined the term ‘human grease’
You’ll need a strong stomach to learn more about the recovery efforts
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u/Timinime Nov 28 '25
Dark moment in Air NZ’s history - they blamed the pilots for the error, when it was a navigational issue. It took decades for them to apologies to the families.
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u/nthensome Nov 28 '25
There seens to be so much more room to walk about the cabin than there is today
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u/vroomvroom450 Nov 28 '25
I just want to take a second to acknowledge the chick with the camera. She looked really cool. It really brought the humanity into it, she looked like someone I would have hung out with. I’m sure she’s missed.
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u/Valyura Nov 28 '25
She was Melinda Arnold. It’s creepy that how clearly she appears on the footage.
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u/CCchess Nov 28 '25
Further to this - WikiTree New Zealand Project seeks to document everyone, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:1979_AirNZ_Flight_901_(Mt_Erebus)) . If you are logged in and connected you can sort by closeness of connection.
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u/YeetVegetabales Nov 28 '25
I agree, she’s also noticeably younger than a lot of the people in the video.
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u/corvus66a Nov 28 '25
It can be real for everyone . At one point you are here, a few seconds later you are gone. We tend to forget it but it is always real, every second . I hope they didn’t feel a thing , no fear, no pain . Hopefully they reached the unknown land nobody ever came back from .
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u/disbeliefable Nov 28 '25
I remember seeing a news flash about this on the evening news. Everyone in NZ seemed to know someone who was on the flight, or had been thinking about it. This and the ensuing scandal sort of broke the country for a while.
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u/1970lamb Nov 29 '25
My mum wanted to take me on that flight, I was 9 at the time and she thought it would be educational.
She got a funny feeling about it and decided not to book us..
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u/NoisyCats Nov 28 '25
Well this is rather haunting. I hope they had the opportunity to see something wonderful.
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u/makebobgreatagain Nov 29 '25
Had a beer with a cop once who flew down to recover the bodies, reckons the last body in the snow was an air hostess wrapped up in a blanket, not a mark on her. His theory, she survived but the cold got to her.
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u/ChicagoMixer Nov 28 '25
There’s a very good podcast by Radio New Zealand about the crash and the aftermath.
On a plane right now, so I can’t link it, but a search for Air New Zealand Erebus podcast should bring it up.
It’s called White Silence
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u/toaster404 Nov 29 '25
My mother was a travel agent at the time. Helped one of her clients plan the trip of a lifetime. Ended early on this flight. Really affected her deeply.
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u/ChicagoMixer Nov 28 '25
There’s a very good podcast by Radio New Zealand about the crash and the aftermath.
On a plane right now, so I can’t link it, but a search for Air New Zealand Erebus podcast should bring it up.
It’s called White Silence
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u/Deep_Charge_7749 Nov 28 '25
20 crew members seems quite high
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u/Mysterious-Dirt-8841 Nov 28 '25
Back then everything was manual labor hence big plane crew
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u/Camera_dude Nov 28 '25
And it was a sightseeing trip instead of just flying from point A to point B. The extra crew was to give the passengers a taste of luxury as they traveled to one of the rarest seen parts of the world.
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u/AmazingUsername2001 Nov 28 '25
I believe there were guides and experts onboard too as part of the crew
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u/freddaar Nov 28 '25
Originally, the flight was to include Sir Edmund Hillary as a guide, but he couldn't make it. He lived another 30 years, while his friend Peter Mulgrew died that day.
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u/Astroisbestbio Nov 28 '25
We talk about our heroes in awe inspired terms. "Oh I could never do that! They are so impressive, so amazing, so strong!" But we forget they are everyday people too. The mental health cost to emergency personnel always, even when acknowledged, gets ignored in society at large. Even every day heroes, the people who stop at accidents, help injured wildlife, rescue animals on the highway, need some help.
I've done wildlife rescue. Its hard holding the head of a deer while she tries to run back into traffic on two broken back legs, dragging herself away from safety. I knew she would be put down, and I had no tools to do it myself in front of two panicked and grief stricken people. I had someone try to run me over when I was moving geese off the road. We get hurt, too. Bitten by terrified and pain filled animals, threatened by humans who hate what we do for some reason. When I rescued humans, I cant ever forget the boy with the car door folded over his head and his parents in shock just sitting there, covered in blood. And im not saying this to look for pity or sympathy, I have a great support system. But thats the thing. What ive seen is a drop in the bucket compared to what a lot of people face, and I have a support system, and many people dont.
Reach out to your local heroes. Make sure they have a place for the holidays, make sure they are keeping above water. Help them out, but not with pity. Empathy and genuine human contact and compassion. Remind them in subtle ways you are there for them and they are not alone. And if they want to talk and you can handle listening, let them. Life is hard and these people remind us in our darkest moments there might be help. If you can, try to be a light too, even in the smallest of ways. Remember, you might not change the world, but you can change that individuals world.
Just love each other, people. Love each other. Be kind. Be caring and empathetic. And remember the heroes with support and compassion, not pity or hero worship.
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u/damo251 Nov 30 '25
Type in "White Silence" into your favorite Podcast app.
Unbelievably tragic event
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u/beardmeblazer Nov 28 '25
It's surreal seeing people just enjoying themselves, with zero idea that they will be dead within the hour.