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Source: ONE News
This summer a Waikato University student will study Hawke's Bay rock formations on a six-week field trip paid for by a fund established as a memorial to a student who died on Erebus in the 1979 Air New Zealand crash.
Philippa Broad, 21, had completed a bachelor's degree in earth sciences at Waikato and had signed for an MSc course when she and her father perished in the accident.
Jon Broad, a Hamilton doctor and anaesthetist at Waikato Hospital, shared an interest in the Antarctic with his daughter and he and his wife Margaret bought Philippa a ticket on the ill-fated flight for her 21st birthday.
Broad went with her that November day.
"I thought it would be a nice day for Philippa to have a father-daughter day, because my husband was a doctor and didn't see an awful lot of his children," Broad, 84, told NZPA.
"It was a 21st birthday present, really."
Hearing from students who had benefited from the fund had helped heal the scars left by losing her husband and only daughter, Broad told NZPA.
"What is lovely is I get lots of letters from students who have benefited from it, which is really, really, very, very nice," she says.
What is not so lovely are the constant reminders of the crash; the anniversaries, the news photos of the DC-10 strewn across the stark white snow of Mt Erebus.
"It's a long time now, and every time these photographs are put up on the television, it still hurts. It is time it was put away, I think," she says.
"I hope really, they'll leave it alone after this. Air New Zealand now is doing something, it should just be put to rest now, people involved never forget it.
"I remember every minute of it, and I think everyone involved with the crash is just the same."
Broad waited at Auckland airport for the aircraft to return from Christchurch, the final leg of the long flight.
She learned the plane was missing when a white-faced man ran through the terminal announcing the plane was lost.
"It was an awful way to hear," she told a reporter 25 years later.
When Philippa's remains were recovered and returned to her mother (Mr Broad's body was never found) Mrs Broad decided they should be reunited.
Philippa was cremated and her ashes returned to Antarctica by a group from Waikato University, uniting her and her father.
Broad, who was not permitted to visit Antarctica herself, found that helped her own recovery from the shattering of her very close family.
"I felt it was necessary," she said.
When Waikato set up a memorial to remember the bright, bubbly student, Broad in 1983 donated what the university called a "substantial" amount.
Since then the capital's income has been used to help Waikato earth sciences graduates and under-graduates "engaged in Antarctic research or in a research area of current interest to the department".
Under the fund's terms, research related to the Antarctic has first priority but applications are considered on merit for projects closer to home - like that of the student off to Hawke's Bay.
Most years several awards are made from the Broad Memorial Fund - six have been announced this year.
Earth Sciences staff member Sydney Wright told NZPA students who benefit under the award write to their benefactor, who now lives in Auckland, to thank her for the award.
Broad has never been to Antarctica - "perhaps 30 years ago, I'm in my 80s now".
She did not lobby for a place on the Air New Zealand 30th anniversary flight back to the ice for those who lost relatives.
That flight was better served taking younger people who had lost parents, she said.
