On 28 November 1979 an Air New Zealand plane crashed into the lower slopes of Mount Erebus in broad daylight while on a sight-seeing trip to Antarctica, killing all 257 souls on board. This was New Zealand's greatest peacetime tragedy.
Not only was the crash deeply shocking for our small country (it is said that everyone knew of someone on board) but the legal and political aftermath wreaked its own trail of debris. The poor conduct of airline management in the months that followed the crash was described as 'a litany of lies' by a Royal Commission of Inquiry who found the airline at fault rather than the pilots. In the aftermath, the stories of the families involved were forgotten, until now.
Sarah Myles has researched extensively into the recovery and identification process that brought her grandfather and so many others home. She weaves through this her family's traumatic experiences and her own memories of that time, discussing the legacy of grief and the possibility of hope.
