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The Mount Erebus disaster occurred on 28 November 1979 when Air New Zealand Flight 901 (TE901) flew into Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board.

Air New Zealand had been operating scheduled Antarctic sightseeing flights since 1977. This flight left Auckland Airport in the morning and was supposed to spend a few hours flying over the Antarctic continent, before returning to Auckland in the evening via Christchurch. The initial investigation concluded the accident was caused primarily by pilot error, but public outcry led to the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the crash. Justice Mahon's report accused Air New Zealand of presenting "an orchestrated litany of lies", and this led to changes in senior management at the airline. The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air New Zealand, the deadliest aviation accident in Antarctica, and New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster.

The flight plan had been approved in 1977 by the Civil Aviation Division of the New Zealand Department of Transport and was along a track directly from Cape Hallett to the McMurdo non-directional beacon (NDB), which, coincidentally, entailed flying almost directly over the 3,794-metre (12,448 ft) peak of Mount Erebus. Due to a typing error in the coordinates when the route was computerised, however, the printout from Air New Zealand's ground computer system that was presented at the 9 November briefing corresponded to a southerly flight path down the middle of the wide McMurdo Sound, about 27 nautical miles (50 km; 31 mi) to the west of Mount Erebus. The flight crew either was unaware of or ignored the approved route's minimum safe altitude (MSA) of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft) for the approach to Mount Erebus, and 1,800 metres (6,000 ft) in the sector south of Mount Erebus (and then only when the cloud base was at 2,100 metres (7,000 ft) or better). Cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcripts from the last minutes of the flight before impact with Mount Erebus indicated that the flight crew believed they were flying over McMurdo Sound, well to the west of Mount Erebus and with the Ross Ice Shelf visible on the horizon, when in reality they were flying directly toward the mountain.

Consequently, the crew thought they were flying along McMurdo Sound, when they were actually flying over Lewis Bay in front of Mount Erebus.

At 12:55 am, the crew of a United States Navy aircraft discovered unidentified debris along the side of Mount Erebus.

As of January 2025 (2025-01), the crash remains Air New Zealand's deadliest accident, as well as New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster (excluding the Cospatrick sailing ship disaster, which happened south of the Cape of Good Hope, en route to Auckland). Almost all of the aircraft's wreckage still lies where it came to rest on the slopes of Mount Erebus, as both its remote location and weather conditions can hamper any further recovery operations. In the New Zealand Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2007, Captain Gordon Vette was awarded the ONZM (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit), recognising his services in assisting Justice Mahon during the Erebus inquiry.

In 2019, two in-depth podcast series were produced on the 40th anniversary of the disaster by Radio New Zealand and The New Zealand Herald. An episode of the Mentour Pilot video series about air disasters titled "A Litany of LIES! | The Mount Erebus Disaster" was created for YouTube.

Material related to the Erebus disaster and inquiry is held (with other Antarctica items from the Antarctic Division of the (former) Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR)) by Archives New Zealand, Christchurch.

Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster at Project Gutenberg

Quick Facts

• The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air New Zealand, the deadliest aviation accident in Antarctica, and New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster.
• Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster at Project Gutenberg
• An episode of the Mentour Pilot video series about air disasters titled "A Litany of LIES! | The Mount Erebus Disaster" was created for YouTube.
• Justice Mahon's report accused Air New Zealand of presenting "an orchestrated litany of lies", and this led to changes in senior management at the airline.
• As of January 2025 (2025-01), the crash remains Air New Zealand's deadliest accident, as well as New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster (excluding the Cospatrick sailing ship disaster, which happened south of the Cape of Good Hope, en route to Auckland).

Source material: Wikipedia - "Mount Erebus disaster". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.