Mount Erebus disaster one year old today

Press, 28 November 1980, Page 13

Mount Erebus disaster one year old today

The four memorial crosses on Antarctica's Ross Island

A year ago today an Air New Zealand DC--10 crashed into the lower slopes of Mount Erebus—the 3794-metre, live volcano that dominates Ross Island in Antarctica.

All 257 people aboard the jet-liner were killed. It was New Zealand’s biggest disaster, and people throughout New Zealand were shocked and stunned. So, too, were the temporary residents of Antarctica.

After the DC-10 crash, the people of Ross Island —the McMurdo Station, Scott Base, and Williams Field communities — built a large wooden cross. It was erected just before Christmas.

The photograph at right shows Americans and New Zealanders raising the “DC-10 crash cross” on a rocky outcrop about one kilometre from the wreckage of the aircraft. Staff from Scott Base and McMurdo Sound spent six hours in sub-zero temperatures and 50-knot winds erecting the cross. The photograph below shows the final resting place, with a line of wreckage from the crashed DC-10 going away to the left.

It is the fourth major commemorative cross to be erected on Ross Island. The other three were put up more than 60 years ago—during the height of the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration.

1. VINCE: (far right): The oldest of the Ross Island crosses is the most accessible. It is situated on Hut Point, a short walk from McMurdo Station—America’s main Antarctic post. It commemorates Able Seaman George Vince, a member of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s first Antarctic expedition. - Vince was drowned after he slid down a snow slope into the sea in March, 1902. His body was never found. 2. OBS-HILL (bottom): The best-known of Antarctica’s crosses was erected in January, 1913, to commemorate the best-known of Antarctica’s explorers.

On the summit of the 228-metre high' Observation Hill between McMurdo Station and Scott Base is the wooden cross erected in memory of Captain Scott and his party who lost their lives in March, 1912, on their return journey from the South Pole. The others in the party were Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry Bowers, and Petty Officer Edgar Evans. The cross is inscribed with the words: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” The view from Scott’s cross is panoramic. For example, White Island, 35km away, is clearly visible behind the cross. The despoliation of the environment my modern man is also visible. Several vandals have carved their initials into the base of the cross on Observation Hill. Staff of the Antarctic Division of New Zealand’s D.S.I.R. keep a close eye on the cross and are attempting to remove the unsightly carvings. 3. EVANS (above): The third cross was erected by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trans-Antarctic expedition on Wind Vane Hill at Cape Evans in 1916, to commemorate three colleagues who lost their lives in the vicinity of Cape Evans. Cape Evans—2skm away from modern-day Scott Base—is the site of the hut built by members of Scott’s 1910-1913 Antarctic expedition. The hut was also used by members of Shackleton’s 1914-1917 expedition. The cross at Cape Evans has no inscription on it. However, when a New Zealand group restored Ross Island's historic huts in 1960, a piece of paper was found bearing this inscription for the cross: “Sacred to the Memory of Capt. A. L. A. MacKintosh, R.N.R., and V. G. Hayward who perished on the sea-ice in a blizzard about May 8, 1916, and of the Rev. A. P. Spencer-Smith, 8.A.. who died on the Ross Barrier on March 6, 1916.” This inscription is now recorded on a plaque at the foot of the cross. All three crosses are historic monuments, preserved in accordance with the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty. S The Humanist Society in New Zealand criticised the erection of a cross near, the DC - 10 crash-site. The society argued that the cross was foisting a particular religious symbol on the dead of many nations and many religions. And yet it is noteworthy that there are no religious inscriptions on any of the crosses. All four Ross Island, crosses are moving Because of their stark simplicity. They remind us not only of the people they commemorate, but also of the fact that nature is still the. sovereign power in Antarctica. ' ' - .