As someone who was at the terminal that Wednesday waiting for the 10 to land, I remember it well. I also remember that despite all the blame that was thrown around:
New Zealand 1953 Civil Aviation Regulations, Part 51 (part and sub part forgotten) stated:
The Pilot in Command is responsible for the safety of his passengers, crew and aircraft (strangely not aeroplane and no mention of being responsible for ones' own safety either).
Despite the cover-ups, the atlas (which was exactly the same as the one I had used at school several years earlier) that was used as a "chart", Collins house being broken into and "items removed in the wee small hours" plus all the other cockups made with regard to this flight, Part 51, IMO, lays the blame right where is should. I take nothing away from the man as a pilot but he made a bad decision and the cheese certainly punished him and all those sitting behind him that fateful day.
One of the more sadder aspects of this accident for me was the RNZAF C130 that flew the same flight path as 901 but a mere 500 feet higher and it cleared Erebus.
Can any DC-10 pilots out there tell me how many seconds earlier would it have required for climb power to be applied for the aeroplane to have also cleared the peak and not resulted in CFIT. It seemed to me that from the "whoop whoop pull up" on the CVR transcript it took a long time to react and advance the levers to the forward position and begin to raise the nose. I got the impression Collins may have thought he was being warned of gentle raising terrain and the not the steep incline of a mountain. After all, he did have NO IDEA of where he was.