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Air New Zealand plane fuselage on Mt Erebus

Only one portion of the fuselage of the Air New Zealand DC-10 remained intact on the icy slopes of Mt Erebus. Red and green flags respectively mark out the search area in a grid pattern and indicate the site of human remains. This method was used to identify and document finds of human remains and property.

Recovery operation begins

A break in the weather allowed the first members of the Erebus Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team to leave McMurdo Station at 8.30 a.m. (NZST)* on 3 December 1979. Deteriorating weather initially hampered efforts to get the remaining team members up to the site, and a blizzard later that evening prevented any work until early the following day. Bob Mitchell, the search and rescue coordinator leading the recovery operation, had flown in with the initial DVI team. But he returned to McMurdo prior to the blizzard and advised the media contingent that they hoped to recover more than the 50 to 70 bodies mentioned previously.

Lone woman

Only one woman worked at the crash site, US Navy Flight-Surgeon Sandra Deegan. She had the task of examining the bodies and formally announcing that they were dead.

There was pressure to complete the recovery operation quickly because the ice runway at McMurdo would begin to thaw in mid-December, making it unusable by wheeled aircraft. This would greatly restrict the movement of aircraft, making it difficult to return bodies to New Zealand.

After the blizzard cleared the mountaineers on site broke the bridges that had formed above the crevasses and marked them with red flags (bodies and human remains were marked by green flags). The surveyors completed their grid pattern and the DVI teams began to search 30 m square grids over the wreckage area of approximately 700 by 120 m. They tagged, photographed and bagged bodies, remains and personal belongings with reference to the grid pattern. There were five DVI teams - each made up of two policemen, one mountaineer, and one photographer. McMurdo provided the men who acted as photographers.

Skua gulls

Skua gulls were an ongoing source of anguish to those involved in the recovery operation. The gulls attacked bodies at the crash site, even after they were placed in body bags. They were hard to scare off and the DVI teams eventually took to covering the bodies in ice and snow while awaiting their removal to McMurdo.

Mitchell had planned for the DVI teams to work in 12-hour shifts, with a break offsite before returning. But their determination saw the men work between 15 and 20 hours a day for four days, with just short breaks onsite in their tents. The first bodies were transported back to a temporary mortuary at McMurdo by US Navy helicopters on 4 December, just hours after the start of the operation; the last followed on 10 December.

Eight of the 12 volunteers assisting US Navy Flight-Surgeon James Goodrum at the temporary mortuary at McMurdo were Americans stationed there. They volunteered in the hope this would limit the number of New Zealanders from Scott Base needed to handle the bodies of their countrymen.

Throughout this period the site investigation continued. It operated alongside, and where appropriate in concert with, the recovery operation. At the crash site itself the two teams shared food and accommodation, and assisted each other, for example when wreckage needed to be moved to uncover bodies. Back at McMurdo a police sergeant, flown in after the main police contingent to sort through belongings recovered from the site, passed on rolls of passengers' films for the US Navy to develop for investigators.

*On the day of the Erebus disaster there was a one-hour time difference between New Zealand and McMurdo Station. New Zealand was observing daylight saving time, which Scott Base and McMurdo Station did not begin observing until 1992/93.

Next page: Site investigation and recovery operation conclude

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Image: New Zealand Police.
Permission of the New Zealand Police required for any reuse of this image.

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Police officer and search volunteers at Tangiwai

Police officer and search volunteers at the scene of the railway disaster at Tangiwai, December 1953.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-4875-1-01-09
Photographer: Morrie Peacock
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Pursuing the Mau in 1930 - slideshow

To view as slideshow you will need to Download latest Flash Player.

This series of images show the pursuit and arrest of Mau by New Zealand marines and police in January 1930.

Alexander Turnbull Library,
References: Refs: PA1-o-795-10; 2. PA1-o-795-26-1; 3. PA1-o-795-43; 4. PA1-o-795-26-2; 5. PA1-o-795-17-2; 6. PA1-o-795-17-1; 7. PA1-o-795-17-5; 8. PA1-o-795-12-1; PA1-o-795-12-4
Further information and copies of these images may be obtained from the library through its 'Timeframes' website, http://timeframes.natlib.govt.nz.
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of these images.

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NZ history:

New Zealand in Samoa

The Royal New Zealand Navy

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Fred Evans

Portrait of Fred Evans by Dick Scott, c1913. Evans was killed during the 1912 Waihi strike.

Read more about Fred Evans

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:PAColl-3736

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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'Anti-terror' raids in Urewera

Citing the Terrorism Suppression Act, police arrested 18 people in nationwide raids linked to alleged weapons-training camps near the eastern Bay of Plenty township of Rūātoki.

In addition to raids in Rūātoki and nearby Whakatāne, search warrants were also executed in Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North and Hamilton. The raids followed 12 months of police surveillance of activist groups ranging from environmentalists to Māori separatists. Around 300 police, including members of the Armed Offenders and anti-terror squads, were involved in the raids. A small number of guns and 230 rounds of ammunition were seized.

Among those arrested was the veteran Tūhoe activist Tame Iti. Police claimed Iti was involved in running military-style training camps in the Urewera Ranges and was planning a guerrilla war to establish an independent state on traditional Tūhoe land. The Solicitor-General subsequently decided that there was insufficient evidence to lay charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act, which he said was ‘almost impossible to apply in a coherent manner’. However 16 people faced weapons charges.

Those arrested were released on bail within a month. After a lengthy legal process, charges against 11 of the 16 were dropped in September 2011; the Supreme Court ruled that the police had obtained evidence illegally. Another accused man had died in the meantime. Iti is one of four people who faced trial in the High Court in Auckland in February 2012 on charges of participating in a criminal group and possessing firearms. The jury was not able to agree on the former charge, but all four were found guilty of firearms offences. In May 2012 two received a sentence of nine months home detention and the other two - including Iti - were each sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.

The raids damaged the relationship between the police and Tūhoe. They were ordered by Police Commissioner Howard Broad, who on his retirement in 2010 promised to ‘stand and explain to Tuhoe what the police did’ – and if necessary apologise. The raids also complicated Tūhoe’s negotiations with the government over the iwi’s claims under the Treaty of Waitangi, though a full and final settlement was reached in September 2012.

The Ureweras had experienced similar police action before. In April 1916 a large force of heavily armed constables was sent to arrest the Tūhoe leader Rua Kēnana. Shooting broke out and two Māori, including Rua’s son, were killed. Rua’s trial in the Supreme Court was one of the longest in New Zealand’s legal history. He was found not guilty of sedition but guilty of resisting arrest and sentenced to one year’s hard labour, followed by 18 months’ imprisonment. The presiding officer, Judge Chapman, commented that Māori needed to learn that the law ‘reached every corner’ of the land. Eight members of the jury later spoke out against the harshness of this sentence.

Image: Police detaining a man at Rūātoki (Stuff.co.nz)

Police search Minnie Dean's garden

Following Minnie Dean's arrest in May 1895, police undertook a search of her garden at The Larches, near Winton. They unearthed the recently buried bodies of two babies and the skeleton of an older boy (whom she later claimed had drowned).

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New Zealand Graphic

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Finding the cause - Erebus disaster

Ron Chippindale's report

The Chippindale report

After the site investigation in Antarctica was complete, Ron Chippindale and his investigators returned to New Zealand to continue their work. Chippindale's enquiries also took him to the United States and the United Kingdom from late December 1979 to early January 1980.

On 4 March 1980 the interim accident report was sent to parties whom Chippindale considered might bear 'some degree of responsibility for the accident'. At the time he refused to reveal who had been sent the interim report, advising that doing so would indicate the report's findings.

Calls for a public inquiry, which had begun shortly after the accident, continued amid the controversy over who had received Chippindale's interim report. The Attorney-General, Jim McLay, subsequently announced that there would be a Royal Commission of Inquiry. On 21 April Justice Peter Mahon was appointed to conduct the inquiry. The public hearings were subsequently set down to begin on 7 July, with a preparatory hearing on 23 June.

A number of parties protested against the planned release of Chippindale's final report in advance of these hearings. But the government went ahead with the public release of the report at midnight on 19 June.

In the days prior to the release, Chippindale advised the media that he had had difficulty finding 'the ultimate cause'. He explained that what he had said in the report was what he thought was the 'probable cause - the last thing that made the accident inevitable', but that there were other factors leading up to the accident.

These other factors, outlined in the conclusions section of Chippindale's report, included 'omissions and inaccuracies' in the route qualification briefing. Criticism was directed at Air New Zealand and the Civil Aviation Division (CAD) for these and other failures. But Chippindale ultimately concluded that the flight would have proceeded safely had the pilot not descended below the minimum safe altitudes specified by CAD and Air New Zealand.

The Mahon report

Judge Mahon's report

The public hearings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the accident began as scheduled on 7 July 1980. Chippindale was the first of 52 witnesses examined. He was asked to expand on various aspects of his report, and was cross-examined by legal counsel. Other witnesses called during the 75 sitting days included employees of Air New Zealand, CAD, the New Zealand Meteorological Service and members of the pilots' families. In addition to hearing evidence in New Zealand Mahon travelled to the US and UK.

Mahon had been due to make his report to the Governor-General by 31 October, but he was granted four extensions to this deadline. At the conclusion of the public hearings he had 3083 pages of evidence, 284 documentary exhibits and 368 pages of closing submissions to review. His report was submitted on 16 April 1981 and released publicly on 27 April.

In the section summarising 'the cause of the disaster' Mahon argued that 'the occurrence of any accident was normally due to the existence of a variety of factors'. He asserted that in this case there were 10 factors, and the disaster would not have occurred had any one of them not been present. But he then went on to describe a single cause of the disaster. He disagreed with Chippindale's 'probable cause' that the pilot was at fault, and cleared the crew of any responsibility for the accident. Instead he laid the blame squarely on Air New Zealand.

Mahon also claimed that the airline's executives and management pilots had engaged in a conspiracy to whitewash the enquiry, accusing them of covering up evidence and misleading investigators through ‘an orchestrated litany of lies’. He ordered Air New Zealand and CAD to pay the costs incurred by the consortium representing the estates of deceased passengers, the New Zealand Airline Pilots Association, and the estates of the pilot and co-pilot. He also ordered the airline to pay $150,000 towards the government's costs.

Court action

Resignation

In the months that followed Mahon's accusation of 'an orchestrated litany of lies’ was challenged by Air New Zealand in the Court of Appeal. The Court concluded that Mahon had breached natural justice by not allowing those accused to respond to the allegations and that he had acted outside his jurisdiction. His order of costs against the airline was quashed. Mahon subsequently resigned from the High Court bench.

Despite his resignation Mahon decided to appeal to the Privy Council against the Court's judgement and the government agreed to pay his costs. The Privy Council 'very reluctantly' agreed with the Court's judgements and dismissed Mahon's appeal. They also placed on record a tribute to the 'brilliant and painstaking investigative work done by the judge'.

Ongoing debate

The debate over whether pilot error or Air New Zealand was to blame for the Erebus disaster continues today. It is often stirred up by media interest or by events held on significant anniversaries of the disaster.

Ongoing debate over Erebus

In 1999 the Minister of Transport, Maurice Williamson, who worked at Air New Zealand as a corporate planner at the time of the crash, tabled the Mahon report in Parliament. Williamson argued that the time for apportioning blame was over and that he was tabling it because 'of the lessons it taught'. But some involved in the accident investigation and Royal Commission of Inquiry argued that Williamson should also be tabling the judgements of the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council on the report.

On 23 October 2009 Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe apologised to those affected by the tragedy for Air New Zealand's failures and for its treatment of families of the victims. But for many this apology did not go far enough. Maria Collins, the wife of Captain Jim Collins, the pilot of Flight TE901, advised the media that she still hopes to clear her husband's name.

Court of inquiry - Wahine disaster

Chief Inspector George Twentyman, who was in charge of the police response to the Wahine tragedy, realised that a court of inquiry was bound to follow. He ensured that a comprehensive and accurate paper trail existed. Every decision and communication was documented, and these records, together with the personal reports of the officers commanding sections, formed the basis for a very full debriefing report on the police organisation during the disaster. This was a first as far as police procedure was concerned and is now standard practice.

A story of gallantry mentioned in the inquiry

The court of inquiry that met 10 weeks after the sinking pinpointed the build-up of water in the vehicle deck as the reason the ferry finally capsized. The ship’s enormous two-tiered vehicle deck could hold over 200 cars and spanned nearly the entire length and breadth of the ship. When water entered the vehicle deck, it sloshed from one side of the ship to the other. This momentum increased the vessel’s list to starboard until it reached a critical point, forcing the captain to order those on board to abandon ship. The rush to the lower, starboard lifeboats produced a slight but sudden shift in weight that was sufficient to cause the ship to lose any remaining stability.

One question focused on the timing of the decision to abandon ship, but the report of the inquiry concluded that more lives would almost certainly have been lost if this order had been given earlier. The storm was so strong that rescue craft would not have been able to assist any earlier than 12.30 p.m.

Captain Robertson was criticised for failing to report to those on shore that the vehicle deck was taking on water and that the ship's draught had increased to 6.7 metres after striking the reef. The extreme nature of the storm, though, was ultimately responsible for the tragic events of that day.

Police artist, 1987

Senior Sergeant Brent Craig displays a mock-up of an offender and an array of male facial characteristics from his photofit kit in 1987; moustaches are conspicuously absent.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: EP/1987/0856/22-F.
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Sound clip: effects of Erebus disaster on police

Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, describes the effects of the disaster on police.

Transcript

Interviewer: [A] leading New Zealand psychologist says many of the Erebus rescue workers took almost two years to recover from the stress of handling and identifying victims of the Erebus crash. Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, says the disaster caused stress symptoms seen among rescue workers during wartime.

Tony Taylor: Certainly there was fatigue because of the long hours that they worked at a stretch and over a period of time. The effects were troubled sleep, troubled in their eating, troubles in their general social activities, in their feelings about themselves. A number really became quite melancholy. These things lifted and the extent to which they lifted was a tribute to the groups to which they belong and to damned good management procedures and to camaraderie that came.

Interviewer: How long did some of these effects last then?

Tony Taylor: Well, some of them lasted as long as 20 months, which is a long time, and others didn't emerge until fairly late, and then they gradually subsided. People used various ways of coping with them as any human being would under these very difficult and very trying circumstances.

Sound file: Radio New Zealand Sound Archives Ngā Taonga Kōrero. Any re-use of this audio is a breach of copyright. To request a copy of the recording, contact Sound Archives Ngā Taonga Kōrero.Reference no: T2616

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