Air NZ explains Erebus absence

Air New Zealand did not ask to attend 25th anniversary commemorations in Antarctica for the 257 people killed in the Erebus air disaster, believing there was not enough room.

Communications manager Glen Sowry disclosed yesterday that the airline did not make a request to Antarctica New Zealand to send a representative, saying that agency had made it clear there was limited space for visitors to fly and stay there.

Mr Sowry said he worked closely with the agency in preparing for the commemorations, for which Antarctica NZ asked the airline to send a wreath of artificial flowers.

"They said, 'We are turning people away all the time'. The suggestion was there was no way it was going to be able to happen - the opportunity did not exist."

But he noted that Air NZ chairman John Palmer and chief executive Ralph Norris attended the main Erebus commemorative service in this country, at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland, and spoke to those who lost loved ones on Erebus.

Air NZ's wreath was one of three laid at a memorial near the Erebus crash site on Sunday, when a helicopter landing party led by Foreign Minister Phil Goff was taken aback to find remnants of the crashed DC-10 airliner had re-emerged from the ice. Because the area is designated for special protection, the wreaths were retrieved at the end of the visit and re-used at a memorial back at Scott Base, about 50km away.

Antarctica NZ spokeswoman Emma Reid could not say how the agency might have treated a request by the airline to attend the memorials, as the question had never arisen. "At the end of the day it always depends on merit, but we can only take 400 people down a year," she said from the base.

Air NZ is meanwhile reluctant to apologise for attempts after the tragedy to blame the DC-10 pilots for hitting the mountain, apparently not wanting to cast aspersions over the management of the day.

All Mr Sowry would say was that the airline was sorry for the accident and "the losses that many families suffered as a consequence".

"But it's inappropriate for the management of today, who for the most part are relatively new to the business, to pass judgment on the actions of our predecessors 25 years ago."

He noted that Mr Norris and Mr Palmer held private conversations at the cathedral with Maria Collins, widow of Erebus flight commander Captain Jim Collins, and other family members.

Mrs Collins is satisfied that Parliament's acceptance in 1999 of a royal commission report blaming the crash on computer navigation co-ordinates which were changed without the pilots being told was sufficient to exonerate her husband and First Officer Greg Cassin.

But her eldest daughter, Kathryn Carter, wants a clear apology from the airline or the Government as its main shareholder and Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton has undertaken to ask his Cabinet colleagues if this can be given.

Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen, who is shareholding minister of the airline, appeared unwilling yesterday to take up the cause.

"In the end I think that's probably more a matter for Air New Zealand," he said on Newstalk ZB.

"There is still, I think, some argument about what the balance of the causes were.

"There was probably more than one cause involved, as I've read the Erebus situation, but it is certainly clear I think in retrospect that the pilots could not bear the full blame for what happened."