Fatal DC10 course retraced

Press, 27 November 1980, Page 1

Fatal DC10 course retraced

An R.N.Z.A.F. Hercules transport aircraft yesterday eerily re-enacted the fatal flight of the Air New Zealand DCIO that crashed on Mount Erebus, in Antarctica on November 28 last year. The aircraft pulled up only two miles from Mount Erebus, reports NZPA special correspondent from Scott Base. Wing Commander K. Gayfot put the machine into a sweeping turn, past the wreckage, and only 500 ft higher. For 30 minutes the big aircraft had flown a carefully timed and plotted course which exactly followed the path and posi-

tions of Air New Zealand’s flight 901. The manoeuvre was not done out of morbid curiousity. It was an exercise to test one of the theories for the crash put forward at the Mount Erebus Royal Commission hearings. Aboard the aircraft were the Royal Commissioner, Mr Justice Mahon, and counsel and experts assisting the inquiry.

Twenty minutes after completing the complicated figure-of-eight manoeuvre, the aircraft completed its flight from Christchurch by landing at McMurdo Station. One of the manoeuvre’s aims was to test a theory that the approach to Lewis Bay, on the north of Ross Island, is similar to that of McMurdo, flying over sea ice to the west

The theory was advanced by Captain Gordon Vette, an Air New Zealand pilot, at the inquiry last month. He suggested, and backed up with photographs, the theory that the coastline of both approaches could be mistaken by a pilot not familiar with the area, and if a low-lying cloud bank obliterated all high land. However, yesterday’s flight was in brilliantly

clear weather. Mount Erebus was capped with a volcanic plume rising 4000 ft above it. Mountains 200 km away on the polar mainland stood out like Christmas cakes. Mr Justice Mahon said later that it was impossible to make a proper assessment of the theory. The wreckage still remains a brown but insignificant stain on the mountain slopes.

From the transport air-* craft the wreckage was hard to distinguish from about 2000 m but Scott Base staff say that in spite of the crushing winter snows, summer winds have uncovered much of it. Some of it appears to be sinking into the ice. The inquiry team will spend four days at Scott Base, and will visit the crash site.