A Sad Anniversary - The Erebus Disaster

Yesterday the 28th of November marked the 44th anniversary of the loss of Air New Zealand's DC 10 ZK-NZP (c/n 46910) along with 257 passengers and crew when it crashed into the lower slopes of Mt Erebus in Antarctica.  This was the worst single tragedy in New Zealand history (one more than the Napier earthquake of 1931) and the circumstances have proved controversial even after so many years.  

I remember that we were living in Hong Kong at the time and we nearly always watched the Air NZ DC 10s arriving and departing on their twice weekly services to Kai Tak, they were a link to home.  We listened to the news reports of the missing plane with disbelief and then the sad news was confirmed.

I cannot find that we have posted about an Air NZ DC 10 on the blog, so here is a photo of ZK-NZP from JetPhotos taken by Daniel Tanner at Mangere on 27/7/77:

Air New Zealand has re-used the ZK-NZ_ series of registrations for their Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet, with ZK-NZC, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M. N, Q and R but they have not re-used ZK-NZP.