Memories of Erebus: The horrific reality of losing my mum in a plane crash
Tuesday, 19 November 2019
OPINION: On the morning of November 28, 1979, my mum used her 49th birthday gift from us - a gift from which she wouldn't return alive.
Ever since Air New Zealand had starting flying there, Dorothy Mann, my mum, wanted to go to Antarctica. That morning our kitchen was alive with breakfast conversations about her pending flight to Antarctica. We talked about what she may expect to see, along with the hope that she will get to sit next to someone interesting. She was very excited. Dad and my younger brother took Mum to Auckland Airport for her flight.
The evening she was supposed to arrive back, Dad and my younger sister went to pick Mum up from her flight. Dad rang me from the airport saying there were a lot of people there and no-one was saying anything. He asked me to ring the airline and ask them when the plane (TE901) was due in.
I did ring, and the airline staff member asked me what my connection with the person on the flight was. I told her, and remember her saying the plane had not reached Christchurch yet and that a search and rescue team was being mounted.
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I was so shocked my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. When Dad arrived home from the airport, we just sat in the lounge waiting for some news. It was one of the longest nights of mine and my family’s life. In the early hours of the next morning, broadcast on TV were pictures of the plane. It was just like looking at a very bad black smudge against a very white landscape.
After the recovery operation, I picked up a call from the police. A man’s voice introduced himself and said, 'I think we’ve found your mum' and asked if he could come around. I made a time when I knew Dad would be there. When he arrived, he pulled a small brown envelope out of his pocket, and inside it were Mum's rings. I remember Dad saying, 'is this it, is this all I have left?'
The policeman then asked us to come down to the medical school (where the bodies of the victims were being held) to meet with the coroner. Dad couldn’t go, so I went and did the interview with the coroner to further identify and confirm that it was indeed Mum who had been recovered from the ice.
I was very nervous and didn't know what to expect. The questions were confronting to say the least. 'When was last time you saw your mother alive?', 'What was she wearing?' etc. They offered to return the clothing she was wearing on the flight, but I declined as it was blackened and looked charred in places. The coroner released Mum's body to the undertakers, and we cremated her on Christmas eve.
Sometime during those few short months following the crash, Air New Zealand sent round a representative to interview Dad to ascertain Mum's dollar value for compensation. They asked questions about how many dependents she had, whether she worked and what her duties were etc. It was awful to see the impact and the toll it took on Dad.
The months and years that followed have continued to be traumatic. The Government (at the time) and Air New Zealand would not take ownership of the tragedy, instead playing the blame game. It wasn’t until the Perpignan air crash on the 27th November, 2008 that Erebus became visible again.
It was in Rob Fyfe’s reign of Air New Zealand that things started to change. They offered for one family member to fly to Antarctica, and my younger brother went.
Now in 2019, 40 years after the Erebus disaster, the current Government want to acknowledge the tragedy. A memorial was chosen, and the site sorted, or so we thought. A petition in the eleventh hour from the local community has now prevented the 40-year commemorations and the turning of the sod. And so, it goes on.
Even in writing this very short synopsis, there are no words that even come close to the ongoing suffering and devastation that has been endured over the decades.
Six-part podcast series White Silence has been created by Stuff and RNZ to mark the 40th anniversary of the Erebus disaster. Listen to White Silence on Stuff, or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or any other app using the RSS feed.