Dead: Three passengers and one crew
Seriously injured: 12 passengers, two crew
The de Havilland DHC-8 collided with terrain about 16km east of Palmerston North, killing four people and seriously injuring 14.
The TAIC report found pilot error, but in 2001 the captain, Garry Sotheran, was acquitted on manslaughter charges.
His defence of terrible weather, poor Ansett pilot training and a plane with a known undercarriage defect was accepted.
But the TAIC report also raised safety issues pertaining to the CAA: "The CAA at the time of the accident was not staffed adequately to carry out competent auditing of all of the companies which it had approved."
"The CAA's audit staff members were not adequate to ensure that Ansett New Zealand operated to the standards with which it had undertaken to comply.
"The CAA's auditing might have detected weaknesses in the operator's procedures if it had carried out check flights during its auditing in the period leading up to the accident."
It recommended the director of CAA take urgent steps to complete his review of the adequacy of CAA staff numbers for carrying out safety audits.
