More bodies may be recovered

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 1

More bodies may be recovered

NZPA Scott Base More bodies than had been expected are likely to be recovered from the wreckage of the crashed Air New Zealand DCIO on Mount Erebus.

Inspector R. Mitchell, who is leading the New Zealand police contingent in Antarctica, flew to the wreckage yesterday morning and said later that more bodies would be recovered than the 50 to 70 mentioned earlier. The earlier estimate was based on a preliminary' investigation of the scene from a hovering helicopter and a close examination of United States Navy photographs. In Wellington, the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said the Government was not being put under pressure over the recovery of the bodies.

“I think everyone realises the difficulty of the task facing those who are down there and the fact that it has become very clear we will not get all the bodies out,” he said.

The aircraft’s two vital flight recorders have now been recovered. They were found within 15 metres of each other at the crash site on Sunday night. The flight-data recorder will probably have to be sent to the United States for analysis but the voice recorder may be translated in New Zealand or Australia. As work to recover the bodies continued the New Zealand Engineers’ Union said it had decided not to recommend strike action against Air New Zealand because of the tragedy. Meetings were to have been held in the main centres today so that Air New Zealand ground staff could vote on a union recommendation to strike in protest against the level of wage offers made by the airline in the engineers’ award negotiations. Work on recovering the bodies was not possible until late last night after Antarctica’s rapidly changing weather again halted helicopter flights between

McMurdo Base and the crash site 50km away. After taking policemen and mountaineers from McMurdo Base to Mount Erebus, helicopter flights were suspended, with photographers, a vital part of the police recovery team, stranded at McMurdo Base. The photographers are required to record the position of the wreckage in which the bodies are found before they are moved to a temporary morgue at McMurdo Base. Two parties will work on the mountain, each group consisting of two policemen roped to mountaineers, and a photographer. Two other parties will remain on standby to relieve the groups working on the mountain. Late last evening the weather cleared sufficiently for a helicopter to move photographers to the scene.