I have thought about that and wondered why AIR does not try it, now that we have all Kiwis travelling domestically. I think AIR is failing, not giving this a go https://antarcticaflights.com.au/
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I have thought about that and wondered why AIR does not try it, now that we have all Kiwis travelling domestically. I think AIR is failing, not giving this a go https://antarcticaflights.com.au/
Maybe you weren't here on the fateful day and remember what happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Erebus_disaster
What Kiwi of a certain age can forget Justice Mahon's haunting words regarding the Mt Erebus investigation "an orchestrated litany of lies"
Deeply ingrained suspicions remain embedded within the fabric on N.Z. society that that AIR has blood on its hands.
Excerpt - Privy Council findings :- Regarding the issue of Air New Zealand stating a minimum altitude of 6,000 feet for pilots in the vicinity of McMurdo Base, the Privy Council stated "Their Lordships accept unreservedly that ... the evidence given by several of the executive pilots at the inquiry was false. But, even though false ... it cannot have formed part of a predetermined plan of deception.
I think any attempt by AIR to restart flights to Antarctica would be met with quite considerable resistance and I doubt the Govt would allow such an insensitive proposal to proceed.
" fly me to the moon"
can you imagine any member of parliament.... wait is there anyone there bar winston who can remember that far back?
thats a dead rat..
no one in marketing in there right mind would even bring it up even if they were not born then..
Its never going to happen.
Ill run it past my agent next week just for laugh or rather i think it will be met with a blank stare.
You're right I wasn't here then but am surprised that you think this sad accident would stop scenic flights to Antarctica in 2020 - 2021. Better to leave it to Qantas ? Tens of thousands of Kiwis and Aussies take cruises down to Antarctica annually which they can not do at present. Some of them may well be interested in scenic flights.
There’s a guy who chartered a Dreamliner last year and went south to do some aurora watching ....so far south they were probably over the Antartica anyway
Maybe it will take some enterprising privateer to organise Antartica flights to get AIR interested
I'm with Beagle on this one. There's still many of us around who find it difficult to accept AIR's failings in this tragic episode. Any move to "resume" scenic flights to Antarctica would be very badly received by the NZ public, IMO, despite the passage of 41 years.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was sitting in my first car listening in on the radio and the sad news was announced that the flight was so late in returning that even on the engines most economical setting it was not possible that the DC10 was still flying and that it must have crashed. The fiasco of what followed over the months and years ahead was of cataclysmic proportions and makes AIR's recent mishandling of the refund issue look like a storm in a very small teacup. As I said earlier today, very deep suspicions remain that AIR as a company tried to cover this up and blame the pilots through a carefully contrived orchestrated litany of lies. Where there's smoke there's fire and I believe AIR as a company at the very least has a high degree of culpability for what happened.
I think starting flights to Antarctica again would be deeply disrespectful to all those people and their decedents who were so profoundly affected by this tragedy.
Its not the only aircraft they have lost either https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/air-n...crashes-france Maybe if you were here in N.Z. at the time you would understand my perspective.
By contrast Qantas in its near 100 year history, (they will be 100 years old on 16/11/2020), have never lost an aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Qantas so yeah...best to leave these difficult navigational journeys to companies that know what they're doing.
Maybe if AIR can string 50 years of crash free flying together (assuming they exist that long into the future), they would have earned the right to wash their hands of the blood of their chequered past ? Until then I reckon scenic flights to Antarctica is a no go zone for AIR.
My cousin sent me the attached image taken in my childhood town yesterday :-)Attachment 11942
Slightly off topic - but a flight over it would be better than over time 1000's stepping on it and may be slowly destroying some of its beauty - let the scientists be the only ones down there IMHO
I too remember watching it on the news and them saying well it would have run out of fuel by now even in the best case scenario
agreed - if you werent alive at the time you have no idea how much it impacted kiwis, firstly the tragedy - Nearly everyone knew someone on that plane - and then the long drawn out murky mysterious way to uncovering what happened
But of course as us oldies die away someone may have the snow blindness to retry it. Frankly I cant see why anyone would want to fly over such a large monotonous land mass covered in white stuff. I can understand people wanting to actually land of course for a sense of being there , thats quite different imo.
PS My neighbour told me today he bought a couple of thousand AIR shares. :( He was doing so well with his Fortescue mining too.
"The fiasco of what followed over the months and years ahead was of cataclysmic proportions and makes AIR's recent mishandling of the refund issue look like a storm in a very small teacup."
you had to live through it to believe it. it was as if AIR NZ simple could not accept the plane wasnt coming back. They acted as if it was a nightmare... that they were still asleep and any moment they were going to wake up and the plane land.
You really had to live it to understand. MR B has it dead on... sorry terrible pun.
Q Air has to do it first.
Think there's some assumptions being made here. Not all of us who were in our early 20's when the Erebus tragedy happened & remember it well & knew people involved, think it would be disrespectful to those lost their lives by a resumption of flights in an appropriate & respectfully handled way. Not talking about a champagne & canapés style flight. But not only would many family and relatives & descendants of those killed jump at the chance to see Antartica, but NZ has a long & deep connection to this vast beautiful wild continent & early polar exploration, & currently there are virtually no opportunities for any other than a very select few scientists ( & guests of MP's) to experience it, other than via tourist operations out of Australia & South America.
Maybe after 41 years it is still too soon & off the table for now, but the Air NZ of today is hardly the same AIR of 40 years ago & at some point maybe 50,60 or 100 years after Erebus, surely enough time will have passed to allow resumption of flights as said with an appropriate respectful tone.
Acknowledge also there are people who still find it too raw & a few years ago when AIR developed a Safety video featuring NZ research connections to Antartica, there was a great deal of angst about it from a few of the family members.
Just to finish with this thought, are flights over this vast continent on AIR blocked off forever due to this tragedy?
Not sure this is completely true to be honest with boat expeditions available to the subantarctics (which is surely much more interesting) and beyond I believe for example
https://www.heritage-expeditions.com...-travel/#trips
Attachment 11946
Justice Mahon's Royal Commission report on the Erebus disaster is a compelling read.
The whole report not just the "orchestrated litany of lies" part is an indicment of the powers that be of the time, which is why they were so hostile to it.
Boop boop de do
Marilyn
the thread is currently examining the possibility that AIR commence a new route to the Antarticas which would of course increase revenue - hence enough on topic that folks shouldn't complain about it
(ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE WHOLESALE THREAD MASHING THATS BEEN GOING ON FOR MONTHS WHERE NOBODY REALLY CARES WHERE THEY POST )
Sorry, you're quite right, had overlooked that option.
Not sure i'ld want to take that long rough Southern Ocean crossing on myself now, would need to be pretty determined. From Ushuaia in S America its much closer & more accessible for us older types or of course the flights from Australia & S.America. There certainly is a significant market for it & I believe it is an extraordinary experience, incredibly beautiful, nothing like it anywhere else in the world.