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![]() Erebus Memorial mix-up: Wrong plans shown to public at special consultation, says local politician.Erebus memorial taken off fast track: Decision delayed until after local body elections.Kate Hawkesby: National Erebus Memorial a classic example of bureaucrats ignoring the experts.It was a bog standard late spring day, with highs of 23C in Auckland and Christchurch, and 18.7C in Wellington.Īnd Governor-General Sir Keith Holyoake joked to dignitaries at Auckland War Memorial Museum's 50th birthday that he hoped he'd be invited to the museum's centenary in 2029. If the early part of the day was an ordinary one for Trish Gillies and little Hendon jr, it was the same for the country. Instead, at 1.49pm (12.49pm in Antarctica, which in 1979 didn't recognise daylight saving) flight TE901 crashed into the northern slopes of the continent's second highest volcano, 3794m Mt Erebus, killing everyone on board. The plane was ZK-NZP, better known as a five-year-old DC10 which on Novemwas carrying a full passenger load on a $329 ($1200 in 2019) return "cruise" over the icy wilderness more than 4000km to the south. ![]() Then he said, 'The plane's lost'." 'OH, WE HAVEN'T HEARD FROM THE DC10 FOR A WHILE' I thought of the plane, because I'd been thinking of the plane all day. I immediately thought of the plane, I didn't think of my mother or anything like that. She went on with her day, like any other "at home with the baby". "They were saying it was the 50th anniversary of the first flight over the South Pole and I remember it going through my mind straightaway, 'Oh my god, I hope nothing happens to Jim's plane'." In two weeks it'll be 40 years since Gillies sat in the kitchen of her Taupō home and listened to that news report. It was where her only brother, James Lewis, was that day flying as part of a crew of 20 looking after 237 excited passengers on an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight over the vast and untouched frontier at the bottom of the world. Trish Gillies was feeding 7-month-old son Hendon Gillies jr his breakfast and a news report about Antarctica had caught her attention. The 8am news had just begun on the wee transistor tuned to Radio Lakeland. Cherie Howie looks back on that fateful flight. Photo / Fileįorty years ago an Air NZ sightseeing plane went missing in Antarctica. The tail of the crashed DC10 was among wreckage scattered across the slopes of Mt Erebus after Air New Zealand flight TE901 crashed in 1979.
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