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Memorial proposed for New Zealand's Antarctic disaster

Xinhua, November 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

A campaign was launched Tuesday for a national memorial to New Zealand's worst-ever peacetime disaster -- the 1979 Erebus air crash that killed 257 people in Antarctica.

A voluntary advisory group, with Lady June Hillary, widow of explorer and mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, as patron, was pressing the government to back a new national memorial in time for the 40th anniversary of the tragedy, said spokesperson Richard Waugh.

"The Mount Erebus accident with 257 fatalities -- 237 passengers and 20 crew -- is still New Zealand's worst civil disaster. At the time it was the world's fourth worst aviation accident," Waugh said in a statement.

"New Zealand as a nation continues to be profoundly affected by the tragedy and it is a pastoral and public oversight that nothing has yet been done to establish a national memorial to the Mount Erebus accident victims, especially for the many families involved."

The Air New Zealand McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 was on a daylong sightseeing flight over the Antarctic when it crashed into the side of Mount Erebus on Nov. 28, 1979.

Most of the dead were New Zealanders, but they also included 58 passengers from overseas: 24 from Japan, 22 from the United States, five from the United Kingdom, two each from Australia, Canada and Switzerland, and one from France.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry sharply criticized state-owned carrier Air New Zealand for trying to conceal systemic failures that contributed to the crash and instead trying to shift blame to the aircrew.

Waugh said that the advisory group had no intention to refer to or discuss the causes of the accident.

"It is now time to put the controversy of the accident to one side, and focus on a national memorial to those who died; a special place for families and for all New Zealanders to remember," he said.

"Surviving spouses, siblings, and children of the victims are aging and many are asking for a national memorial to the accident, in time for the 40th anniversary. While some people have suggested we wait until the 50th anniversary in 2029, our advisory committee's view is that waiting longer would be uncaring and insensitive to so many older relatives."

The group was consulting with families of those who died, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Air New Zealand, and other organizations about the proposal, but no location for the national memorial or funding plan had yet been decided. Endit