Erebus - Operation Overdue

Television (Full Length and Trailer) – 2014

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When 257 people died on an Air New Zealand sightseeing tour to Antarctica in November 1979, a team of 11 Kiwi police officers were sent to help recover their bodies. This award-winning 70 minute docudrama chronicles the harrowing and life-changing fortnight the police experienced, in perilous conditions. Co-director Charlotte Purdy has close ties to the disaster — her uncle Gordon Brooks, an Air New Zealand engineer, died in the crash. Roundhill ski field in the South Island stands in for Mt Erebus. Some of the clothing and boots were actual items worn by police during Operation Overdue.

Each of those families that lost somebody on Erebus grieved for that individual family member — I grieved about the whole lot.
– Police officer Stuart Leighton, on recovering bodies after the Erebus disaster