On November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand airliner took off from Auckland Airport on a sightseeing trip to Antarctica. There were 257 people on board. Hours later everyone was dead. Somehow, the plane had flown directly into the Erebus volcano. This was a disaster that shattered a country’s psyche. In White Silence, Michael Wright and Katy Gosset explore why New Zealand’s deadliest disaster was also its most controversial; why a nation was incapable of moving on; and why it was captured by one famous phrase: ‘an orchestrated litany of lies’.
On November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand DC10 took off from Auckland Airport on a sightseeing trip to Antarctica. It never returned. What do the families remember of that fateful day?
Whose fault was it? Investigators sift through the evidence and reach a shocking conclusion.
With the pilots’ reputations in tatters, a second investigation into the crash unearths appalling mistakes and a sensational new theory for what caused the crash.
‘An orchestrated litany of lies’ is ingrained into New Zealand’s collective consciousness. Justice Peter Mahon didn’t have to say that, but he did. It would prove the making of him, and the ruin.
In 1981, New Zealand was changing. The baby boomers had come of age, and the South African rugby tour was about to tear the country apart. When the Mahon report landed right in the middle of this, the country was ready for its first big conspiracy theory.
40 years after the Erebus disaster, there is still no national memorial to the victims and no consensus on exactly what happened that day in 1979. Why has New Zealand been so hopelessly unable to deal with its worst-ever disaster?
A special bonus episode of White Silence for November 28 - the anniversary of the Erebus disaster. Bringing together stories from listeners like Air NZ staff who had to work through the tragedy, a teenager's 40-year trauma finally brought to a close and an unlikely golf tournament played in the shadow of Erebus.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to White Silence about her decision to say sorry to the families of the Erebus victims: “It all built a picture for me of unfinished business, and that wasn't right.”
Listen to the first episode of Stuff’s major new podcast, The Commune, a 12-part investigation into the notorious free-love commune, Centrepoint. There are crimes. But this isn’t a whodunnit. It’s a whydunnit. Subscribe at www.stuff.co.nz/thecommune