Talk:Mount Erebus disaster

Untitled

The reference by Mahon to Air NZ changing the route without telling the crew is of course only partly true, and unfortunately a cause of much misunderstanding. The crew were in fact given a printout of the route, and entered it into the aircrafts computer themselves. They failed to look at the plan closely enough, but it cannot be said that they weren't told.124.197.15.138 (talk) 20:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Erm, no. The original INS co-ordinates provided by the airline's Navigation Section to the flight crews included an error that resulted in the previous flights flying some way out over McMurdo Sound, the intended course in fact bringing the flight over Mount Erebus itself. The original flight plan assumed a safe height higher than the mountain, so this was not in itself dangerous. On actual flights however it was normal to descend to below 5,000 ft to allow passengers a better view, as was well known by the airline's management, although they later denied this despite published accounts of the flights stating so. As the erroneous course placed the aircraft out over the Sound, and away from the mountain, this error did not matter much and it was not noticed on previous flights.

Immediately before the accident flight however the error was discovered by the Navigation Section and corrected and the updated INS co-ordinates given to the crew without the flight crew being informed of the correction. The crew therefore thought that the course being flown would fly them as usual in towards the mountain from a safe area out over the waters of the Sound.

Instead, the aircraft's INS flew the aircraft on the originally-intended course, and in misleading visibility, i.e., a true white out, the crew flew the aircraft right into Mount Erebus. If the INS co-ordinates had remained as they had been previously, i.e., with the error uncorrected, they would not have been near the mountain and the accident would not have occurred. That is rather the point of the matter.

Logic and common sense would seem to dictate that if you know a crew are going to be flying at low level in the vicinity of a mountain that any change in their programmed course needs to be conveyed to them while they can still do something about it, rather than allowing them to only find it out for themselves upon impact.

The right time to notify Capt. Collins of the change was the evening before the flight when he was planning the journey and still had time to take the change into account and to factor-in its implications. Not to change it without telling anyone. If that was the only option, they should have done nothing, left the error uncorrected, and waited until he had returned.

... and what makes this accident so sad is that not only did so many people die due to a simple error, the people responsible instead of admitting their (honest) mistake, then tried to cover it all up - with the co-operation of the NZ Government and some of its departments - in a way that was almost laughable, their lies being so poorly thought out and transparent that they must have failed to notice that Mahon was a barrister and high court judge, and had spent most of his career in court listening to better and more accomplished liars than themselves, whose, if one watches the Royal Commission's proceedings, attempts at obfuscation appear positively amateurish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.220.131 (talk) 13:52, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Close But NO CIGAR. What this well research edit ignores is the fact that Captain SIMPSON came back from his flight to the ice on 14th Nov 1989 and advised that he had noted a 26 Nm discrepancy between his intended flt path and where the INS put him as he approached MC Sound. This is highly suggestive that the INS coordinates he or his FO had loaded on the 14th as per Nav section coordinate print out were for the Over Erebus 1977 flight plan. I'd suggest that the stumble bums at ANZ did nothing to investigate this until the last moment before the accident flight on the 28th Nov. The reason that the earlier TE901 flight did not crash into Erebus is that it approached the Antarctic mass in the clear and Simpson took manual control of the flight path and there never was an issue for that flight. Had it approached Erebus low in AGL and under foul weather conditions it too may have crashed.

erm, no. The originally planned route took the flight over mount Erebus at a safe height, however when the INS co-ordinates for this route were being entered manually into the company's computer system several figures were entered incorrectly. Subsequent flights used these incorrect co-ordinates which instead routed the flights safely down McMurdo Sound and on these flights it became normal practice to descend to low level in order to give their paying passengers good views of the terrain. These flights completed normally and the descent to lower levels was reported in various publications. However, Capt. Simpson, who was aware of the original planned routing over Erebus, noticed these co-ordinate errors on one of his flights, compared to the originally planned route, and notified Air New Zealand's Navigation Section, who then corrected these errors on the eve of Capt. Collins' flight and without telling him or his crew. Capt. Collins had planned his route on a chart using the route flown by previous flights which took them down McMurdo Sound and so drew his tracks accordingly. Thus Capt. Collins was expecting to fly down McMurdo Sound the same as all the previous flights had done. On the morning of the flight Air New Zealand's Navigation Section handed a computer printout (containing the corrected figures) of the INS co-ordinates to the crew, who then entered them into the aircraft's INS thinking these were the same as for previous flights - Collins' crew had not flown the route before. The INS then navigated the aircraft into Mount Erebus without the crew realising, due to a 'whiteout'. Air New Zealand then tried to argue that the crew should have checked the figures before entering them into the INS but Judge Mahon stated that the crew were entitled to expect that the company's Navigation Section be able to provide accurate and correct figures, that, after all, is what Navigation Section is there for, and the crew had already plotted the intended track on their charts the evening before the flight.

---

Comment on previous post above : "If the INS co-ordinates had remained as they had been previously, i.e., with the error uncorrected, they would not have been near the mountain and the accident would not have occurred. That is rather the point of the matter."

I believe that Mahon found that the story of the HEWLETT transcription error into the Alpha system was a lie (I have heard this but not read the whole report nor have access to it ) . I believe this to be true as well. I believe that the INS route was intentionally revised at a suggestion of Air Nz pilots or pilot to agree with the route that the USAF LC 130 flights took because the route was safer and gave MC better radar coverage of approaching aircraft. The fact that Erebus was an active volcano was possibly also a consideration. THis INS route change was clearly an informal change. Most if not all of the a/c on the 1978 season flights flew this MC Sound route. It was also the route that the Briefing Section of Air NZ based the pre flight briefings on. TimFid (talk) 22:02, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

No the name of the Chief Navigator is Brian Hewitt not Hewlett. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 11:50, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The Navigation Officer, Mr. Brian Hewlett, was testifying under oath and with the possible penalty of being charged for perjury should he be found to have lied. He was not a high ranking member of Air New Zealand with political connections and it is difficult to imagine what motivation he would have had in telling lies to the enquiry, considering that he was in fact admitting to a grievous error such that no qualified Navigator would wish to admit. That he did in fact admit to such an error does at least display some integrity, integrity that was noticeably absent from Air New Zealand's senior management. I should also perhaps point out that if some financial incentive was offered to Mr. Hewlett to commit perjury then it would have needed to have been a quite substantial one as after admitting in court to such an error Mr. Hewlett was almost certainly guaranteeing that he would never be employed in any responsible position in any airline ever again.

None of the Air New Zealand flight crew witnesses made any mention of the original route being changed for the reason you suggest. Indeed the only flight crew member who made any mention of a change of route was Capt. Simpson when he suggested the route be 'corrected' to that which was originally planned, i.e., over Mount Erebus. It is also notable that all the press reports and even the press releases put out by Air New Zealand long before the accident specifically mentioned the route of the flight taking them '... down McMurdo Sound'.

If as you suggest the route change was an 'informal' one then I can only marvel at the implied lack of professionalism displayed at Air New Zealand i.e., they changed the route they were flying and didn't bother to communicate this fact to their own Navigation Section?

BTW, I have read the report.

Time

I'm not sure that the times given are in NZST, they could be in NZDT as the crash took place in November when NZ was using Daylight Time. Evil Monkey∴Hello 10:23, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

The same thought just occurred to me! I think NZDT would be in effect in late November 1979. -- FP 10:33, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

There's a little confusion over time - the New Zealand mainland was operating on NZDT, but McMurdo Station was operating on NZST. I am trying to fix that. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 01:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Air New Zealand Flight 901/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû 20:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Section "Recovery efforts" contains a lengthy quote, plus a bad reference for the quote; see WP:NPS.

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   See comments below.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Significantly lacking in sources in some areas. Some sections have only a single source for several paragraphs of material. See comments below for specifics.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   See comments

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   I cannot, in good faith, expect this article to fix the above problems in the week provided by placing the article on hold. Should the above problems be addressed, however, Flight 901 could very easily become a GA, if not better.

Specific comments

References

• The lead should not contain any references, since the purpose of the lead is to summarize important points, not introduce new material.
  • This is not completely true, according to WP:LEDE.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 01:31, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
• I'm not sure why "Unless otherwise stated, all times are New Zealand Standard Time (UTC+12)" requires a citation.
• The references section contains a series of references at the bottom that are not used inline. (NZAVA Operation Deep Freeze - The New Zealand Story, 2002., Operation Overdue–NZAVA Archives 2002., &tc.) The section reads like someone's notes as to possible sources for expansion of article coverage.
• The following sections rely on a single source: Changes to the coordinates and departure; Accident inquiries (top); &tc.
• There are entire paragraphs with not a single citation. Examples: in section "Circumstances", see paragraph 3 ("Eventually, the Captain...") and paragraph 5 ("The flight had...").
• Section "Appeals" is unsourced and contains a quotation. Sections "Official accident report", "Mahon inquiry" are unsourced.
• Reference 16 ("NZPO1 NZAVA–see Bibliography.") directs one to see the Bibliography, but there is no Bibliography, nor is this reference listed in "External links" or "Footnotes".

Quotations

• Section "Recovery effort" contains very long quotation that might very well be the whole of the primary source. This information should be incorporated into the rest of the text. See policies/essays: WP:NPS, WP:Quotations
• The quotation in section "Appeals" should have a reference to the source.

Images

• File:Tail_of_Air_New_Zealand_Flight_901.jpg -- the fair use rationale on this image is questionable, especially the bit about replaceability.
• File:Flight901Sitrep4.jpg -- lacks a fair use rationale for use in this article.
• Note: The images may very well be ok, but the other issues of the article so outweigh its importance that it fails GA anyway.

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Route map request

Could we please get a route map for this article? I'm having difficulty picturing where the bulk of the 5,360 miles (8,630 km) is spent when the return trip from Christchurch to Auckland is only 464 miles (747 km). The only map I see linked is this reference. However, that's more of a crash map than a route map. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 07:05, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Most of the distance was spent flying to and from Antarctica. The travel agent brochure at NZ History Online for the November 1979 flights has the full route map [1]. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 09:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

A quick Google search will point to various sites with map images, such as this site [2]. So, it'll be a matter of just picking one. KyuuA4 (Talk:キュウ) 22:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Radar

Paul Holmes recent book makes much of the proposition that a DC-10 radar cannot detect anything other than moisture, and therefore would not show a mountain. Does anyone feel up to writing a section on the radar? The other technical aids are covered already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm no radar expert, but how does that happen? Mountains are way, way larger than raindrops. No diffraction limit problems here. Can snow on the mountain completely absorb radar and not reflect it back, while still reflecting off moisture? And why wouldn't they have air traffic-capable radar? Or was it a seperate system and they were not looking at it cause they didn't expect any nearby air traffic? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Disclaimer - I'm not an expert, but I am well read. Also I don't have access to the book being referred to, so I'm making a few assumptions about what may or may not be in it, hopefully someone with the book can take my advice and figure out whether the book would make any type of useful reference.

The aircraft radar being referred to is probably solely designed to help avoid dangerous weather, thunderstorms and the like. If it's not designed to help you navigate, no-one will use it to navigate. It may have been turned off, and even if it was turned on it is probably not actively referred to in flight unless you're worried about "thunderstorms ahead". So yeah, it only shows clouds and rain - because that's what it's supposed to do.

The aircraft did have a ground proximity warning system, but as the wikipedia article on that says: "Traditional GPWS does have a blind spot. Since it can only gather data from directly below the aircraft, it must predict future terrain features. If there is a dramatic change in terrain, such as a steep slope, GPWS will not detect the aircraft closure rate until it is too late for evasive action." Using the technology of the time, and the requirements of the time, it was not designed to prevent pilots from flying directly into VERY steep terrain. Again as the wikipedia GPWS article indicates, it wasn't until the late 90's that systems were developed that had earlier warnings for more complicated situations. And they don't use radar, they use current position and speed in combination with high resolution maps and a computer to predict danger. And I wonder if such systems have Antarctic data.

We need to be careful here not to engage in original research. And I'd be hesitant to quote the book of a journalist if he's making up stuff on his own. Does he specifically quote or reference any other experts? Or is he pulling something out of thin air (as some people are won't to do) by hanging his opinion on some obscure technical detail he doesn't understand, and saying "if only the weather radar could have been used to navigate". That's .... right out of left field unless there are real aviation experts who think commercial passenger flights SHOULD have ground mapping radar used for navigation.

I think it's interesting to note that even with the warning they did get (six seconds), they couldn't do anything because they were operating at their minimum airspeed. I believe you don't dare climb or turn violently when you're at minimum airspeed, otherwise you'll stall and that's just flat out worse.

CraigWyllie (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Weather radar in jetliners can be and is used to map ground terrain, including land that is covered with ice and snow. I know, because I used it that way many times when flying the most northern Pacific routes to Japan, to ensure that we did not intrude upon Soviet Air Space. That became a mandatory, additional backup navigation procedure, after the shoot down of KAL 007. All that is necessary, is for the plane's antenna to be tilted down enough to show where the land ends, and the water starts. It was so precise, that the coast line contours of Kamchatka Peninsula, which displayed on our radar screens, matched the shoreline contours drawn on our navigation maps. It also enabled us to detect how many miles we were from that shoreline, at any point along our planned INS route.

A necessary part of detecting T-storms during cruise flight is to ensure the antenna is tilted UP high enough so it will NOT paint terrain below, which can easily be confused for heavy percipitation ahead, if the pilot is not aware he has tilted the antenna down, too much.

The official accident report confirms weather radar can be used to map terraine below, in this paragraph from page 14:

The aircraft was equipped with a Bendix RDR 1F radar which had a digital indication. This equipment has both weather and mapping modes. Although it is not approved as a navigation aid, some pilots of previous Antarctic lights reported that the radar indications of high ground correlated well with the contours which they observed visually in VMC. Expert opinion from the aircraft manufacturers was that the high ground on Ross Island would have been clearly indicated by the shadow effect had either pilot studied the radar presentation during the aircraft’s descent to the north of the island.

EditorASC (talk) 07:14, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

The above is a quote from the Chippindale Report. The major failing of this report is that it does not cite its sources. When pressed on the matter, Chippindale could not name his experts that had supplied the information from the aircraft manufacturer about the radar. Mahon established in the Royal Commission report that the radar manufacturers, Bendix Corporation, advised the radar could not be used to map terrain; there would be no discernable return showing the sloped terrain of Mt Erebus. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

IIRC, the weather radar did not give adequate warning of the approaching mountain because in the Antarctic the snow is so cold and dry that it does not always reflect radar waves like normal rain and snow would. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 19:10, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Archived references not used in the article

• Archives New Zealand. "U.S. Navy SITREP [SITuation REPort] from 28 November 1979 (page 4)". Archived from the original on 27 June 2006. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

--Jetstreamer ^Talk 18:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Recent additions

I think it's time to start a new thread regarding the addition of recent content [3] [4]. First of all, the accident is not the 18th worst in aviation history because accidents with more fatalities include collisions between two aircraft and the they cannot be considered individually. Furthermore, WP:VERIFY requires a citation exactly supporting the material added. Given that this is not the case for second citation of the first diff, it borders WP:ORIGINAL. The same applies for the first citation added in the second diff. The 18th worst accident stuff appears nowhere in first citation of the first diff, and the resemblance between the article and that source is astonishing. Clearly, there's a violation of at least two policies in the diffs provided, so I'm removing these edits in a week or so unless strong arguments for keeping them are given.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 11:08, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree, I removed it 124.149.118.17 (talk) 12:00, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Paragraph removed [5] per WP:SILENCE.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 22:38, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

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"(as the crew assumed)"

Paragraph two of this article includes the text: "(as the crew assumed)".

In the context of this article, this text implies that the flight crew made an assumption in the absence of reasonable and proper factual data, which of course is untrue, as the crew had been briefed by the airline's navigation section 19 days earlier (as is discussed elsewhere in this article). The crew's "assumption" was therefore based on the data presented by navigation experts at this briefing and therefore was not an assumption, but a belief reasonably based on the content of the briefing.

To represent this belief on the part of the flight crew as an assumption is, in my opinion, inaccurate and an affront to the professionalism and integrity of the flight crew of flight 901. I have no doubt that the authors of this article had no such intent and I therefore respectfully submit that the word "assumed" should be replaced by "believed" in this paragraph.

Thanks for all your great work.

Selwyn James Scj242 (talk) 04:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

@Scj242: go on and change it yourself; if some editor disagrees, we'll discuss it later. This great work of ours can be your great work too. --Deeday-UK (talk) 12:58, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I have changed 'assumed' to 'had been led to believe'.

"Mahon Report"

There is an external link to the release of Mahon's report, the link claims "In para. 377 of his report,[29] Mahon controversially[30] found that airline executives and senior (management) pilots had engaged in a conspiracy to whitewash the inquiry, accusing them of "an orchestrated litany of lies" by covering up evidence and lying to investigators."

I don't know why the word "controversially" is used. The conspiracy was only ever denied by executives and senior management; the general public accepted the proof provided in the Mahon report.

I respectfully suggest removing the word "controversially" from the sentence.

Thedoctor98 (talk) 05:09, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I respectfully suggest you to be bold and do it yourself. That's the spirit of Wikipedia. --Deeday-UK (talk) 10:19, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

That is one of the problems with Wikipedia - people just changing things without discussing the matter first. Now I've put it out there and nobody disagrees, I can change it. But not before. Thedoctor98 (talk) 05:54, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

A user on 12 February 2018 undid the removal of the word "controversially" because "This assertion is supported by the article body". However, there is nothing in the article body that suggests the findings of the Mahon inquiry was controversial to anybody OTHER than the management of Air New Zealand. Just because people are found at fault does not mean the decision is a controversial one. Thedoctor98 (talk) 02:48, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Thedoctor98: I can't say I agree. The article says now, as it did then [6] that the Privy Council ruled the finding of a conspiracy (or coverup as used in some sources) breached natural justice. It also touched on, with that John King quote a perhaps even more important point, from I understand it, while they accepted that people had lied, they seem to reject that the evidence showed a conspiracy/coverup.

I think a ruling by the highest court in the land at the time (whatever people think of the Privy Council or the fact it isn't located in NZ) clearly establishes something is controversial. And an "organised litany of lies" sounds to me like an accusation of conspiracy/coverup rather than just an accusation of lying. The fact that the a big slice NZ public did not, or even does not, recognise this is largely besides the point. You don't need the public to recognise something is controversial for it to be clearly controversial.

(And I'm sure there were quite a few people who were not in any way involved with Air NZ or related to people who were who did and especially now, do recognise this. From today, this includes me)

That said, I do not feel that simply saying it was controversial is the right thing to do. Therefore I've instead expanded the lead to include some brief mention of the privacy council findings. [7] If we're going to effectively imply there was a conspiracy in the lead, I think we also need to mention that this finding was rejected by the Privy Council both because of natural justice reasons (the people accused weren't given the sufficient opportunity to respond and/or it was beyond the merits of the inquiry) and because they did not find the evidence compelling.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:10, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

QUOTE From main page - Mahon also found that the preflight briefings for previous flights had approved descents to any altitude authorised by the US ATC at McMurdo Station, and that the radio communications centre at McMurdo Station had indeed authorised Collins to descend to 1,500 feet (460 m), below the minimum safe level of 6,000 feet (1,800 m).[citation needed]

I don't know if Mahon said this but it is a Falsehood.

CVR record as per below.

12,19 FO Roger, New Zealand 901, thanks.

	FE	That'll be round about Cape Bird, wouldn't it?
	FO	Right, right.
	FE	Got a low overcast over McMurdo.
	CA	Doesn't sound very promising, does it?
	MC	Within range of 40 miles of McMurdo we have radar that will, if you desire, let you down to 1500ft on radar vectors. Over.
	FO	Roger, New Zealand 901, that's acceptable.

TE 901 clearly was NOT within 40 Nm of McM and MC controller had proposed that he COULD let the ac down to 1500 ft ASL Only when he had them on radar. He NEVER cleared them to let down to 1500' on their own flightpath. This is a consistent fable that is repeated in the Nz Press -that MC controller was somehow responsible.

source https://tailstrike.com/database/28-november-1979-air-new-zealand-901/TimFid (talk) 13:40, 22 July 2021 (UTC) TeFid

In the course of seeking some additional references I examined this. The Mahon Report does not appear to be able to provide a suitable source for the assumption of the flight being cleared to 1500 feet. The report did show clearly there was a clearance given to 2000 feet.

The above section has been edited by me to 2000 feet with the citation showing this clearance was received added as requested. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 11:43, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

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Could there still be pilot error in a different way?

The pilots did follow erroneous information, and this artlcle says that pilots who follow erroneous information which can lead to an accident can be considered pilot error. Could this have been the case with flight 901? I will not edit the summary until I get reasonable answers. Plus, I don't want to upset the families of the victims, especially Jim Collins' family. Tigerdude9 (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

We can only go by what reliable sources say not what we may think. MilborneOne (talk) 14:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok then, we will go by what the reliable sources say. Tigerdude9 (talk) 21:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

So would Pilot Error be concluded in the summary as the cause of CFIT? As like TigerDude says, neither do I want to be adding Pilot Error in if it was not the cause. OrbitalEnd48401 (talk) 12:36, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

The Royal Commission determined it was not pilot error so it would be strange to contradict that. MilborneOne (talk) 17:51, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

The cause of the accident was effectively a CFIT due to poor visibility/unfamiliar meteorological conditions combined with a programmed change in the previously-briefed route navigation made without the knowledge of the flight crew which deviated from the route the flight crew were expecting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.172.235 (talk) 23:20, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

It was not pilot error because there was no way of the pilots knowing the INS co-ordinates, which had been changed just before they took off, and which they entered into the navigation system correctly, would subsequently fly them into a mountain if the mountain was not visible.

If there had been good visibility* the accident would not have occurred. Similarly, if the navigation waypoints had not been changed without the crews knowledge, the accident again would not have happened.

The introduction of the INS navigation system linked to the autopilot did away with the need for a fourth crew member, the Navigator, so new routes were checked on charts by the crew the night before a flight and the INS co-ordinates checked then. These same co-ordinates were then supplied as a computer printout by the airline's Navigation Section immediately before the crew entered the aircraft when there was no time for the crew to check them. On the accident flight these printed co-ordinates supplied by the Navigation Section differed by a couple of digits from the ones the crew had used to check the route the night before. These changed digits altered the flight path by 12 miles and flew the aircraft directly into a mountain the crew were not expecting to be in front of them and which they could not see because of the peculiar weather phenomenon known as a 'white-out'. This was the accident crew's first such flight to Antarctica and so they had no prior experience of the area or its conditions to guide them, thus making the unannounced change in navigation co-ordinates doubly unwise. At best, it was very unprofessional.

There was good general visibility on the accident flight but the peculiar weather conditions caused the appearance of the show-covered slopes of the mountain to merge with the surrounding land and the horizon such that the mountain became invisible. The Weather Warning Radar (WWR) which would normally have provided some warning of the approaching terrain could not do so because the snow on the slopes of Mount Erebus was so dry it would not reflect the radar waves back to the receiver. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.172.235 (talk) 10:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Then pilot error could be a cause or a contributing factor because of the flight crew’s lack of experience in Antarctica? Tigerdude9 (talk) 18:34, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

″Could″ means speculation.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 18:48, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

@Tigerdude9: Please point to a source that says that the flight crew made an error. Akld guy (talk) 22:45, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

The only source I can point to at the moment is the original report by Ron Chippendale. Since Mahon's appeal was dismissed, it reinstated pilot error as the cause of the crash. Tigerdude9 (talk) 23:19, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

This went all the way to the privy council and the Mahon view of what happened was largely both legally and in popular thought upheld, the appeal was about Mahon’s conspiracy claims not the details of sector whiteout etc. Andrewgprout (talk) 23:46, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

As a general rule it is not reasonable to blame pilot error for an accident caused by the pilot not being aware of something if the situation makes it not possible for him to know or discover the said 'something'.

... or put more simply, it is unreasonable to blame a pilot for not knowing (or doing) something it was physically impossible for him to know (or do) at the time.

The yardstick for this, as with other aviation operations, is a normal, prudent, properly-trained pilot of average flying ability.

The cause of this accident was faulty briefing by the airline leading to the accident crew not being where they had been led to believe they would be, with poor visibility resulting in the mountain that, according to their earlier briefing prior to the flight, they should not have been anywhere near to, being invisible and directly in their flight path. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.153 (talk • contribs) 13:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

The reason it was almost certainly not 'pilot error' is because if the same change of INS co-ordinates had been given to an earlier crew on a previous flight without informing them of the change, and if the same white-out conditions had occurred, it is quite likely the result would have been the same, i.e., the aircraft flying straight into Mount Erebus, with the same tragic results.

It is fair, if seemingly unkind, to state that there were events leading up to this accident, and in its subsequent aftermath, where certain departments within both Air New Zealand, and the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, displayed a distinct lack of professionalism, and competence. Hopefully such is now no longer the case.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.153 (talk • contribs) 14:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

"The reason it was almost certainly not 'pilot error' is because...." the result of the official investigation did not state pilot error. We just go by that, not whatever reasoning we might apply personally to the sequence of events. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:17, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, OK.

Erebus: The Aftermath part 1 here: [8]

Erebus: The Aftermath part 2 here: [9]

I don't know who "John Parker" is at YouTube, but those videos (both about 90 minutes long) look like copyright violations? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC) p.s. please remember to sign you posts here, thanks.

The famous passenger film prior to impact

A film shot by a passenger aboard Air New Zealand flight TE901 on November 28, 1979 is stunning because it appears to show elevation dramatically decreasing before what also appears to be a sudden, abnormal end to filming. This could also be the passenger zooming in on the terrain from an aircraft window. Is it known whether this is sloping terrain right before impact? If it is known - then this information could be added to the article. People who do see the video will undoubtedly be curious and have questions about what they are seeing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.120.205.61 (talk) 19:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm unaware that anyone here knows what you are referring to. You must provide a source to back up any claims made, i.e. where anyone can view this film. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 07:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Advertisement criticism

@Wikimeowcat: I can see devoting a sentence to this in the Legacy section, but anything more than that would be undue weight. It certainly does not warrant its own section. Brycehughes (talk) 11:31, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Leave it out completely, Wikipedia is not a tabloid newspaper.Andrewgprout (talk) 12:29, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Fine by me. Brycehughes (talk) 23:40, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 11 May 2021

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Air New Zealand Flight 901 → Mount Erebus disaster – The common name of the incident. Aircorn (talk) 10:57, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Note: The page was moved on the 11th May to to Air New Zealand Flight 901. Before that it spent 15 months at Mount Erebus disaster. Prior to that it had been at Air New Zealand Flight 901 since 2005. Aircorn (talk) 11:24, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support per WP:CRITERIA and WP:Commonname. The flight name fails Recognizability, Conciseness and Naturalness. Both are Precise. Consistancy may have a case, but flight names are mostly used when the crash itself doesn't have a common name (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force#Accident article naming conventions exceptions). There is clearly a common name for this one.[10] Aircorn (talk) 11:09, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support - Numbers are almost always less recognisable than words. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 15:52, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support per all the above. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:07, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support as it's clearly the common name. Schwede66 20:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support. The move could have just been reverted, but I suppose this'll give the case extra legitimacy. Brycehughes (talk) 20:40, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

  I did consider that, but arguably the more established name is "Air New Zealand Flight 901" considering the article has been at that title for much longer. Plus it is probably bad form to revert back since I changed it in the first place. Aircorn (talk) 22:29, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support Yup move it back. Overall I find the titles of plain flight number articles unhelpful and having something more descriptive is refreshing. In reality all the flight number incident articles should be renamed to something descriptive - ie "Air swaziland DC10 crash" not "Air Swaziland Flight 666". Andrewgprout (talk) 03:16, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support All been said above WP:COMMONNAME. NZFC^(talk)(cont) 09:16, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Can we find a better word?

Second sentence, second par of lead says the following : ….“ the commission, presided over by Justice Peter Mahon QC, concluded that the accident was caused by a ‘’’correction’’’ made to the coordinates of the flight path the night before the disaster, ….” Is the word correction a special meaning term to aviation? Can we have a reference for it? Currently we are saying they corrected something but we know there was nothing to correct. Unfair word choice.Moriori (talk) 02:03, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

The word ‘’’correction’’’ is in quotes because although technically it was a correction it had the unforeseen consequence of causing the aeroplane to not be where the crew thought it was supposed to be. Thus it was, de facto (in fact), incorrect, and caused the aeroplane to fly into a mountain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 11:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Circumstances ...: Probable mistake wrt coordinates

In section "Circumstances surrounding the accident", the paragraph next to the map reads: "The Air New Zealand navigation section changed the McMurdo waypoint co-ordinate stored in the ground computer system around 1:40 am on the morning of the flight from 77°52′0″S 167°03′0″E to 77°53′S 164°48′E."

From the context and the actual coordinates of Mt. Erebus, the position of impact, as well as McMurdo station with its nearby NAVAIDs (NDB, TACAN), all located close to 167°E (see map and other sources), I conclude the cited coordinates before and after the change have been swapped inadvertently.

That is, 164°49'E (well west of Erebus over the sound) was in fact the version on which the presentation, previous flights (who had copied it into their INS) and the belief of the fatal flight's crew were based - prior to the nightly amendment.

167°03"E was the "corrected" position - not exactly but close to the route originally intended and officially approved. Unaware of the change, the unlucky crew copied it and headed straight towards the mountain.

If no one objects, I'm going to exchange both positions to read: "... changed ... from  77°53′S 164°48′E to 77°52′0″S 167°03′0″E." Mibo2de (talk) 21:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Please provide a direct citation for 77°52′0″S 167°03′0″E

The flight plan reproduced in the Mahon Report shows that the final destination coordinates were

77°52.7′S 166°58.0′E. There are a large number of references to this position in the text of the Mahon Report itself, but I have not located any reference to 167°03′0″E.

If no such citation is located in a reasonable time, I intend to change the second coordinate to 166°58.0′E in order to qualify for the available citation. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 10:41, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Sources for Chippindale Report

There are several possible sources available for the Chippindale Report. One of those is the facsimile reproduction produced by TAIC and at the time of posting this, included as reference 10. The other is the full original printed report such as is held in some library collections and publicly available through these libraries. I have inserted this as reference 33 today. Ref 10 is incomplete and missing many of the appendices and I propose replacing it with ref 33 for all references to the Chippindale Report in the article. As far as I can see it qualifies as a valid reference source. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 10:52, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Online sources can be useful for people who don't have access to printed reports in libraries. Do you intend to keep a link to Ref 10 in "External links"? But I just notice that when I tried to open that pdf I got a message saying "its security certificate expired 3 days ago." Regards. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:59, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

You are referring to the Erebus website not to the facsimile reproduction of the report itself.

If you can't get the full report because you don't have access to a printed copy I do not believe that is enough reason to discount use of the full report. Every single source that ever existed is subject to the same potential limitations, and many reference sources simply do not have internet copies available at all yet that is no reason to discourage their use. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 11:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not discouraging use of the printed report, I'm asking about Ref 10. If Ref 10 is unusable, because of expired security certificates, it obviously should no longer be here at all? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:57, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

OK I see your point but there is an archived version available isn't there? PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 09:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Many thanks for reminding me. That works fine. If it gets retained in External links, it's probably worth explaining that it's incomplete and lacks many of the appendices. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:51, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

There are probably multiple sources available for the TAIC facsimile but to get enough citations, the full one needs to be referenced. it would be my preference to fall back to the original full version of the report for all references to it. This means a bit of work to come checking all the citations that rely on the facsimile version due to the incomplete state of its content. PatrickDunfordNZ (talk) 15:48, 2 December 2024 (UTC)