By ANNE BESTON
The first public exhibition of Erebus disaster memorabilia will include replayed parts of the black-box recording of doomed flight TE 901.
The exhibition, to be staged in Christchurch in late July, would also include menus from the flight and passenger tickets as well as a montage of large
photographs.
An Antarctica New Zealand information services specialist, Natalie Cadenhead, said the last moments of the crash would not be played but there would be recordings from other Antarctic flights.
Antarctica New Zealand and Archives New Zealand are organising the event.
Regional archivist Chris Adam said everyone involved was aware that the small-scale exhibition needed to be staged sensitively.
"There is some concern, for instance, about how we handle publicity," he said.
"We are not going to put on a display to upset people further when the whole thing is upsetting anyway but the 20th anniversary a few years ago created a new archive and that's how this idea came up."
Ms Cadenhead said that after the November 1999 commemorations of the crash, Antarctica New Zealand had received requests to make some of the Erebus items stored at Scott Base in the Antarctic accessible to the public.
One of the objects on display would be the memorial book of letters written by family members to loved ones lost in the crash, put together as part of the 20-year commemorations.
But the book's contents will not be on display - it cannot be opened until 2029, or 50 years after the crash.
"Because the letters are so personal they are not allowed to be published," Ms Cadenhead said.
Air New Zealand's flight TE 901 was caught in a whiteout - when the stark whiteness of the region merged with the snow and ice-covered Mt Erebus - during a scenic flight over Antarctica on November 28, 1979.
It smashed into the slopes of Mt Erebus, killing all 257 people aboard.
The crash remains New Zealand's worst aviation disaster and the 10th worst in the world.
Mr Adam said the exhibition would probably run for about six weeks.
