This accident was another classic example of a whole series of errors, omissions, poor procedures, lack of training, weather conditions, commercial pressures and really poor decision making coming together to create the disaster that occured on the afternoon of 28 November 1979.
Yes, the crew of TE-901 descended below the minimum safe altitude on the 28 November 1979 - but then so too had a number of other crews during previous Antarctic flights - all to give their passengers the best possible experience in seeing the wonders of the Antarctic environment. I doubt that Collins would have been foolish enough to have deliberately descend below the minimum safe altitude if he knew that Erebus was directly in front of his current flight track, and if he fully understood what white-out phenomena was. Brooks seemed to be the only one on the flightdeck that showed any real concern for the location of any high ground in the area (i.e. Erebus) - the rest seemed to be going along with Mulgrew's interpretation of what he was seeing out of the window.
Air New Zealand management .... we haven't forgotten you bunch of Criminals, Breaking into people's homes and destroying evidence and with Air N.Z.'s denial that they promoted the flight on the low level flyover around Erebus, certainly showed the company's actions to be "orchestrated" and deceitful, in trying to move the blame from themselves, and place it squarely on the flight crew. The crew were scapegoat as often happens.
In the end, no one really came out of this whole saga looking very good at all - especially a number of personnel from Air New Zealand for their handling of the situation in the aftermath of the disaster.