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Antarctica is an amazing place with lots of snow and ice. Air New Zealand used to take people down to Antarctica to look at this beautiful place from the air. The flights took people to Antarctica from Auckland and Christchurch.
On November 28 1979 an Air New Zealand plane crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica. Captain Jim Collins was in charge on the plane.
There were 257 people on the plane and sadly they all died.
It was so sad for all the families and friends of the people that died and no one knew why it had happened. Most of the people on the plane were from New Zealand. The whole country was shocked by what had happened.
The first idea for why it happened was that the pilot had made a mistake.
Lots of people didn’t agree with this idea so there was another investigation. The new reasons given for the crash were that there we many problems with the information the pilots had been given, with how Air New Zealand was managed and with the bosses of Air New Zealand.
Now when a plane crashes so many things are investigated to find out why the crash happened, not just the mechanics of the plane or the job that the pilots did.
We still remember the Mt Erebus disaster even though it happened thirty years ago. We remember it because it was so terrible for all of those people to die and it is the biggest aviation disaster in New Zealand’s history.
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