Flight 901 - The Erebus Disaster

Television (Excerpts) – 1981

On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mt Erebus, Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board. It was New Zealand's worst civil aviation disaster and at the time, the fourth worst in the world. Flight 901 was the first in-depth documentary on the accident. It surveys the novelty of Antarctic tourist flights, the search and rescue operation, and controversy over causes stirred by Peter Mahon's Royal Commission of Inquiry. This 15-minute excerpt was edited for NZ On Screen by director John Keir, who won private funding to make the documentary after state TV executives had second thoughts.

The occurrence of any accident was normally due to the existence of a variety of factors ...
– Judge Peter Mahon, in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the accident