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The engine of the DC-10 at Erebus - Source: Antarctica NZ Pictorial Collection
The following is a timeline of the Erebus tragedy, New Zealand's worst air disaster:
February 1977: Air New Zealand and Qantas began offering sightseeing flights over the Antarctic. They prove popular, so further flights are planned for the summer of 1978 and 1979.
November 9, 1979: Captain Jim Collins and First Officer Greg Cassin, attend a route briefing which gives the impression their computer guided route is across McMurdo Sound, and not toward high ground. Neither had flown to Antarctica before.
November 28, 1979: Collins and Cassin enter co-ordinates into the aircraft computer, not knowing two had been changed that morning. The flight path is now 45km east of the briefing route.
November 28, 1979: 8.30am, Air New Zealand Flight TE901 leaves Auckland, for an 11-hour return sightseeing flight to Antarctica.
November 28, 1979: 12.30pm, McMurdo radio communications centre gives flight TE901 permission to descend to 3050m and proceed "visually". Mt Erebus is 3794m high.
November 28, 1979: 12.45pm, Collins, thinking he was over a flat surface, advised McMurdo he was dropping further to 610 metres, locking onto the computerised navigational system. Pilots regularly flew low over the area to give their passengers a better view.
November 28, 1979: 12.49pm, four minutes 42 seconds after its final communication, the DC10 crashes into the lower slopes of Mt Erebus. All 237 passengers and 20 crew are killed.
November 29, 1979: About midnight, wreckage of the aircraft sighted. In the daylight it is confirmed no one survived.
February 1980: Qantas terminates flights to Antarctica; Air New Zealand had done so immediately after Erebus.
March 4, 1980: Air accident inspector Ron Chippindale sends an interim accident report to parties who bore "some degree of responsibility for the accident", without making them public.
April 21, 1980: Justice Peter Mahon appointed to conduct a Royal Commission of Inquiry.
June 19, 1980: Chippindale's final report outlines "omissions and inaccuracies" in the route briefing, criticises Air New Zealand and the Civil Aviation Division (CAD), but concludes Collins descended below specified minimum safe altitudes.
July 7, 1980: Royal commission hearings begin. Chippindale, the first of 52 witnesses examined, was queried on various aspects of his report, and cross-examined.
October 31, 1980: Mahon due to make his report to the Governor-General, but was granted four extensions.
April 16, 1981: Mahon submits his report.
April 27, 1981: Mahon Report released publicly. It cleared the crew and blamed Air NZ, saying it tried to whitewash the inquiry, covered up evidence, and misled investigators through "an orchestrated litany of lies". Air NZ boss Morrie Davis immediately rejects the allegations.
April 28, 1981: Air NZ starts High Court action to set aside the findings "in the area of staff integrity". Prime Minister Rob Muldoon backs the action.
May 4, 1981: Davis retires, saying it was to remove the focus point of the controversy, not an admission of guilt.
June 8, 1981: A State Services Commission report into the Civil Aviation Division of the Transport Ministry finds "significant shortfalls" in its performance in relation to Antarctic flights, but they were not "culpable" for the disaster.
October, 1981: Judicial review of "staff integrity" begins in
the Court of Appeal.
December 1981: Court of Appeal concludes Mahon breached natural
justice by not allowing the accused to respond to the allegations.
He was outside his jurisdiction with his "litany" accusation.
January 1982: Mahon's offer to resign from the High Court bench is accepted by Cabinet.
February 1982: Chippindale's response to the Mahon report says it "abounds in errors". He said the flight crew should have fixed their position before descending.
June 1982: Captain Gordon Vette resigns from Air NZ. He had given evidence to the Royal Commission on the effects of whiteout, where pilots are unable to distinguish the horizon. He said he no longer felt comfortable at the airline. "There were more casualties out of Erebus than those who died on the mountain".
July 1983: Privy Council hears Mahon's appeal against the Court of Appeal findings. The Privy Council "very reluctantly" agreed with the Court of Appeal, and dismissed Mahon's appeal.
November 1987: A claim against the United States government on behalf of the flight crew argued US Navy air traffic controllers should have warned the aircraft it was headed for Erebus.
July 1988: US judge dismisses the case against air traffic controllers, saying the crash was the fault of Air NZ and the flight crew.
1994: Qantas resumes Antarctic sightseeing trips. Air New Zealand says "for obvious reasons" it will not.
August, 1999: Transport Minister Maurice Williamson tables the Mahon report in Parliament, arguing the time for apportioning blame was over and there were lessons to be learned. Some argued the judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council on the report should also be tabled.
October, 2007: Collins family complains to Police Commissioner Howard Broad that, in order to pervert justice, "some person, or persons, deliberately withheld or destroyed" information in the pilot's notebook, retrieved from the crash site. Detective Superintendent Malcolm Burgess found pages were removed or dislodged, but it was "not possible to determine with certainty how that might have happened".
October 23, 2009: Air New Zealand apologises to those who lost loved ones in the crash, with chief executive Rob Fyfe saying they were not given enough support by the airline. Maria Collins, the wife of the pilot of Flight TE901, said she still hoped to clear his name.
