Case file · Declassified record
Flight 901 and the whiteout on Mount Erebus
On 28 November 1979 Air New Zealand Flight 901, a DC-10 sightseeing flight from Auckland, flew into the lower slopes of Mount Erebus in a 'sector whiteout', killing all 257 people on board.
1979 CE · -77.42, 167.46 · status: official
The account
The coordinates loaded into the navigation computer had been changed the night before without telling the crew, turning a track down McMurdo Sound into one aimed at the volcano. Cloud merging with snow left no visible horizon. The body-recovery effort was named Operation Overdue. It remains New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster, and disputes over the changed flight plan and what the airline knew kept the case alive for decades.