Erebus crash: Colin Monteath recalls recovery effort in Erebus: The Ice Dragon book

Former New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme field operations officer Colin Monteath inspects one of three DC-10 engines thrown clear of the Erebus main crash site. Photo / Colin Monteath

Former New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme field operations officer Colin Monteath recalls his recovery work after the devastating Mt Erebus crash.

On 28 November 1979 at 12.50pm, an Air New Zealand DC-10 sightseeing aircraft (ZK-NZP), flight TE901, crashed on Ross Island just above the ice cliffs of Lewis Bay. All 257 aboard, 237 passengers and 20 crew, died instantly. The fourteenth such flight, TE901 had taken off from Auckland at 8.30am. The route planned was via the Auckland Islands, Balleny Islands, Ross Sea, McMurdo Sound and, on the return leg, over Campbell Island to land in Christchurch some 11 hours later.

The aircraft did not hit Erebus. Flying at 260 knots (480 kilometres) an hour, it crashed at 447 metres altitude on a gentle snow slope at the base of Ross Island. Reports at the time indelibly linked the crash to the name Erebus, and media statements left the impression that the aircraft slammed into the steep icy wall of a volcano. So long after the tragedy, it is important to correct the misconceptions that have persisted over the years.

I had just returned to New Zealand after my annual five-week start-of-season work at Scott Base. On that dreadful night of 28 November, my neighbour phoned to tell me the plane had run out of fuel and must be down. I knew I would be on my way back to Ross Island in the morning.

Former New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme field operations officer Colin Monteath. Photo / Supplied

Scott Base staff were already extremely stressed. NZARP [New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme] had just wound down its biggest ever logistics management nightmare: a sub-sea drilling programme in McMurdo Sound designed to help geologists date the uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains — an underfunded project on a tight schedule that had stretched them to the limit. Scott Base officer-in-charge Mike Prebble, his deputy, Ted Robinson, who was a seconded police officer, and Antarctic Division building and services officers Garth Varcoe and Bob Thomson bore the brunt of the serious tension between the drillers and Scott Base.

Mike Prebble was ashen-faced and near exhaustion when I arrived at Scott Base with several mountaineers, police staff and air crash investigators from Christchurch. He and Robinson were in charge and continued the superb job of coordinating the transit of the rescue team, police and investigators through the base and on to the crash site.

Later, based at McMurdo, Prebble became the coordinator of New Zealand’s activities on the crash site, working alongside Dave Bresnahan, who immediately offered unlimited helicopter support from the US Navy’s VXE-6 squadron. (No New Zealand helicopters operated in Antarctica in this era.)

The Americans told us to take anything we needed from McMurdo. Together with John Stanton, leader of the Christchurch Alpine Cliff Rescue team, and others, we filled a truck with railway sleepers, planning to construct a level platform on the site to make it safer for the numerous helicopter landings.

The remains of the largest section of the DC-10 aircraft on Erebus, seen from the recovery team’s campsite. Photo / Colin Monteath

Compared with working on the summit of Erebus, where the cold and altitude limit your working day to six hours, the crash site was much easier. Near sea level, it was warm and windless by Antarctic standards. But, at times, fog created dangerous flying conditions for the pilots, especially after we started to lift nets full of bodies to the McMurdo airfield for transfer to New Zealand. Clement weather eased the stress on the young police body recovery team members struck by being in Antarctica for the first time.

The personal trauma was immense. The mountaineers had dealt with death during alpine rescues in New Zealand, but none of us had ever seen carnage on this scale — utter devastation cutting a swathe through this place of beauty and tranquility. As body parts remained largely frozen, our job on the mountain was relatively easy. (After viewing the restricted police training film on the air crash recovery, I developed huge respect for the enormity of the task performed by the mortuary workers from the Auckland University School of Medicine. Of the 331 New Zealanders and Americans who received the New Zealand Special Service Medal [Erebus] in 2006, 220 were mortuary workers.

One of the hardest challenges was pacing ourselves in a land of perpetual sunlight, and knowing when to rest. There was no darkness to soothe the eyes and mind. We had no idea how long it would take to complete all the tasks required of us. Persuading people to rest and to drink adequate liquid was not easy.

I asked Eric Saggers to set up and manage a kitchen to meet the irregular demand for sustenance as workers came off the crash site. Because aviation kerosene had soaked the snow over an enormous area, it was more efficient to have insulated drums of water flown to the site with each incoming helicopter. (For years, I disliked the smell of aircraft fuel at airports. Until Air New Zealand changed their uniforms, the attendants’ teal-blue dresses also distressed me.)

Erebus recovery team members attach coloured flags to bamboo poles ready to mark the location of bodies before they are covered by blowing snow. Photo / Colin Monteath

We survived by outwardly making light of the situation. Some mountaineers whistled or sang as they worked alongside the police recovery teams. We slid down the slope on plastic body bags and even initiated a team effort to roll one of the aircraft’s enormous tyres down the slope. When possible, I spent time beside the human wreckage in quiet introspection.

A friend, mountaineer Bev Price, was a passenger and now lay crumpled in the snow. I remembered her joyous laughter years before, when I woke her in a bivouac near the summit of Aoraki Mount Cook. In the early morning light, we had looked down on Westland, from buckled glaciers to fast-moving clouds, ferns in the forest, and surf breaking on a West Coast beach. Bev had loved these mountains where wildness and wetness reign.

I came off the crash site on the last flight, then stood on the Scott Base helipad in stunned silence. My outer clothing was removed, destined to be burned as it was saturated in fuel and soot. The base was quiet, and I wandered about in a daze, unable to go to bed. Next morning, I found Garth Varcoe and Ted Robinson at work in the sledge room, putting the finishing touches to a large wooden memorial cross that would be consecrated at the flagpole in front of the base and later erected above the crash site. (This heavy cross was subsequently blown away and was replaced by a smaller metal one.) Most at Scott Base and visitors from McMurdo had a hand in helping with this cross; many, in their own quiet way, simply added a few strokes with a linseed oil brush. I did the same and left, soon to fly back to Christchurch.

Erebus: The Ice Dragon, by Colin Monteath, published by Massey University Press, RRP: $65.00. Photo / Supplied by Massey University Press

An abridged extract from Erebus: The Ice Dragon, by Colin Monteath, published by Massey University Press, RRP: $65.00. This is one of four reflections in the book from those involved in the recovery operation. Monteath is a polar and mountain photographer and writer.