the crash and aftermath was a terribly sad state of affairs, which still here cause blood pressure to overload!
a unique tragic crash and such a sad impact for New Zealanders as many knew someone who was lost on this sightseeing fight which back then was ANZ's show case day trip and they all sold out -
Qantas still do these flights every season from Oz airports with a 747-400ER BTW - i would like to do one - would you??
see here
http://www.antarcticaflights.com.au/
i recall the 1979 crash well at the time of the DC-10 ''bad news stories'' happening with regularity so not just the unique accident location and type of joy flight but yet another DC-10 (but which here this a/c type had no contribution to the crash but of course impacted the news story)
so many blindingly obvious what ifs' and the crash would never have happened - one of which had the tour narrator doing the cockpit commentary been on the flight deck at that moment the chances are he would have known that they were in the wrong place - edit I maybe wrong here
the accident now should be used as a major learning tool for all budding crews and operations staff and air safety boards - its is a fantastic piece of very sad history and the events pre, during, and post the crash used as a benchmark of learning.
and also airline companies and aircrews and operational bodies should note that to cover up blame & mistakes for whatever reason will always come back to haunt them as will their arrogance.
the crash is fascinating and happened at a time of major innovations of air travel - big wide body jets - day trips to the south pole - cheap mass air travel - this was all NEW and spectacular must haves and must do's for both companies and public alike.
time to maybe stop letting your blood pressures rise almost 40 years later and accept that things happened that day in that cockpit and prior to take off which are inexplicable to us now so we must study and learn from it -
I was recently at a lecture by explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes about Shackleton and remote polar explorations held in London at the Royal geographical society and we chatted about the Erebus crash as he was there at the time and helped in the recovery
as an aside was it Capt Vette who was the PIC on the DC-10 flight from HNL to AKL that searched over the Pacific for many hours and found the lost PPL flyer and escorted him to land in NZ on fumes