KEY POINTS:
All Black Daniel Carter has dined with the families of those killed in the crash of an Air New Zealand jet in his adopted home town of Perpignan.
Carter's support and sympathy is among the hundreds of messages the families and airline have received since the November 29 crash that killed five New Zealanders off the southern French coast.
Carter - now playing club rugby for Perpignan - contacted Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe as soon as he heard about the Airbus A320 crash. He spent his second night in the city dining with family members.
"There was a lot of pressure on me, particularly from some of the female members of the party, to go back to Dan with a suggestion of how he should dress when he arrived, but I didn't do that," said Fyfe, displaying a sign of the humour and affection that has developed between the victims' families.
Carter broke the tension and took the spotlight off the families. "He's such a nice, down-to-earth guy, and to have them all be able to focus on something other than what had been consuming them was really a special moment."
Carter followed it up with free tickets to yesterday's Perpignan match for the family members.
It has been a long goodbye for the families of the five men lost when the Airbus they were test-flying plunged into the frigid Mediterranean.
First came the nerve-shredding wait for the remains to be recovered - engineer Murray White has not yet been found - then the wait for forensic identification before they could bring the men home.
Last week, the bodies were officially identified as belonging to pilot Captain Brian Horrell, 52, from Auckland; Christchurch engineers Michael Gyles, 49, and Noel Marsh, 35; and Civil Aviation Authority airworthiness inspector Jeremy Cook, 58, of Wellington. The two Germans on the flight, including the pilot, have also been identified. The wait continues for the reason the Airbus fell from the sky without so much as a distress call.
Easing the stress has been the delicate chaperonage of Fyfe and the upswell of support from New Zealand and France.
Stripped bare by grief, Fyfe and the families have forged bonds. "There's a lot of humour, it's not just a morbid or morose environment. We all become very transparent and very vulnerable, and you really get to see the essence of everyone, and we've got some absolutely lovely and beautiful people who are part of this process."
Now, the bodies are coming home. On Friday local time, the caskets were handed to the family members who had flown back to Perpignan last week with Fyfe.
Yesterday, the New Zealand group of 14 gathered on the beach with French officials and media at resort town Canet-en-Rousillon, near Perpignan, for an informal service. As the party descended on to the beach, the sun came through the clouds, creating eerily beautiful reflections on the sea.
"It was probably the most peaceful and serene we've seen the sea," says Fyfe. "It felt quite spiritual."
The mourners placed bouquets at the high-tide line. The deputy mayor announced a monument would be built for the crash victims. Fyfe and a family member thanked the town for its support, especially the fishermen who risked their lives on rough seas in the early days of the search, and farewelled the town.
"It was also a chance for us to reconnect with Murray White, who still remains lost at sea. The families found it a warm experience, a time of connection."
The day got tougher from there. The families met the judge overseeing the investigation, who explained the identification process, the details of the crash and the process from here. The judge talked about the need for "integrity", explaining the painstaking reconstruction of what happened would take time.
There are reports of conflicting information on the flight recorders. "We're not alarmed by it at all, it's quite normal," says Fyfe. "I'm very, very confident that once this has been fully analysed, it doesn't give you a perfect answer, but they'll have a strong lead in terms of being able to determine what caused this accident."
As he recalls the past seven weeks, Fyfe keeps using the word "connection". His role has been as a sort of conduit, a connection, between the families and the rest of the world.
Since November 28, Fyfe has gone beyond the call of duty in the way he's led the families, his staff and the New Zealand public through the tragedy's aftermath.
"The whole process for me emotionally has been a lot tougher than I expected," Fyfe told the Herald on Sunday yesterday.
"In a situation like this, your emotions, your character, who you are, tends to be exposed for everyone to see, and it makes you feel quite vulnerable, which is quite unusual in a job like mine.
"Your humanity, your vulnerability, you become a lot more comfortable with that [after 12 days of reading out emails at the morning meetings with tears running down his face]. I've become more prepared for people to see Rob Fyfe the human being rather than Rob Fyfe the CEO."
Until now, the public face of "Fyfe the Knife", as his rivals once called him, was affable but steely-willed. In turning around the national carrier, the former Air Force air commander has ordered hundreds of redundancies while encouraging staff to call or email him directly.
The New Zealanders will take a charter flight to London with the coffins on Sunday afternoon local time (tomorrow morning NZT), and on to Auckland via Hong Kong on a commercial flight, arriving in Auckland about midday on Tuesday.
On the suggestion of an Air New Zealand engineer, after all passengers have disembarked, the plane will taxi to the engineering base on the airfield. "We're giving staff and other family members the chance to welcome home our boys as they come off the aircraft," says Fyfe, "I'm sure there'll be several hundred people there to greet them."
