Erebus tragedy: The quest for truth

David Livingstone has spent 30 years delving into the causes of the Erebus disaster. Photo / Greg Bowker

When David Livingstone first read news reports that the 1979 Air New Zealand Flight TE901 had been programmed to fly on a collision course with Mt Erebus in Antarctica, he was angry and a little unnerved.

"There were rumblings that the aircraft track had been altered and that such error had persisted for 14 months." That meant his flight, taken a year earlier, must also have been heading for disaster.

"I thought it was only due to good weather, and thus deviation from the programmed track, that our flight - and others - didn't suffer the same fate. There, but for the grace of God, go I."

The more he thought about it, the more it disturbed him. "How dare they have endangered us all with recklessness over such a long time? I immediately suspected cover-up and was determined to get to the bottom of that."

He quickly found his life hadn't been endangered - that it was only the flight of November 28, 1979 that had been on a collision course.

It was just the start of a quest, some would say obsession, that has occupied quite a bit of Livingstone's spare time since. A quest that has seen him read and re-read all the official reports, discuss the topic with interested parties often, and even write a letter (unpublished) to the editor of this newspaper.

In the early 1980s he remembers reading Justice Peter Mahon's Royal Commission report during an Air New Zealand flight to Sydney - much to the chagrin of the hostesses. "I was fairly flagrant in having it on the seat beside me. I can't remember whether I actually got comment or not, but I got an attitude."

Each year, especially on the anniversary of the disaster, Livingstone revisits memories of his own flight and wonders when the controversy will end.

He doesn't think he's alone in regarding Air New Zealand's chief executive Rob Fyfe's recent apology as a "Clayton's apology". Livingstone believes Air New Zealand needs to acknowledge the fact that the airliner was put on the wrong course and that a cover-up did take place.

He speaks fondly of his own scenic flight to the frozen continent. "It remains the best day trip I've ever had. It was pretty much party all day - starting with a Champagne breakfast. The drinks were free and not only did the plane need a top-up at Christchurch, so did the bar. We drank the plane dry."

The time was 1978, the cost was $299. The back page of the in-flight magazine had an ad for Rothmans - the cigarette packet next to a pilot's hands in control of a DC10, read "... on more than 100 airlines, Rothmans is enjoyed for its true King Size flavour".

Livingstone sat in the smoking section and recalls that the flight was deliberately undersold so passengers could easily move around, and that everyone was encouraged to visit the flight deck.

Bill and Boyd were the live entertainment - a pop duo from Hutt Valley who had relocated to Australia in the early 60s and were famous for their 70s hit single Put Another Log On The Fire.

The breakfast menu featured "Grapefruit Maraschino". Lunch included "Bay Prawns & Scallops Antarctica" and "Peach Erebus". Not surprisingly the in-flight films were all to do with expeditions to the South Pole. Those wanting light relief could listen to Boney M's Rivers of Babylon, Meco's Theme from Close Encounters or Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are.

"I didn't know what to expect to see, thinking we might just see a whole lot of white." Commentary was provided by a DSIR scientist and Livingstone was pleasantly surprised. "We could see the pack ice from a long way out. Later, I remember dropping to a reasonably low level to see a lot of the topographical features - things like the glaciers coming down to a rock desert and flying around the side of Mt Erebus."

On the day of the tragedy, a friend who was also on Livingstone's flight called at about 9.30pm to ask whether he heard that Flight 901 was overdue. He knew that could mean only one thing.

"I think everyone was fairly traumatised because everyone either knew someone or knew someone who knew someone - it touched a lot of people." Having had such a brilliant time, his group had also been strongly recommending to friends that they should get on one of these flights too.

"We hoped no one we recommended it to [had] gone. There was a little bit of guilt."

Livingstone, with a computer programming background, has taken a particular interest in how the navigation co-ordinates were changed. He's closely read the sections of Justice Mahon's report explaining how the correct co-ordinate of 164 degrees 48 minutes became 166 degrees 58 minutes, putting the plane on a collision course with the mountain. "It defies belief. Even if you were dyslexic you couldn't do that - make two errors like that."

Livingstone was working with computers used by large companies, which, at that time, were big mainframes, often offshore and loaded with data by key-to-tape machines.

"There was a switch on these keyboards to toggle between a data input mode and a key verify mode - so all these key operators used to key all the data twice. Beeps and flashing lights would go off if the second input didn't match the first."

But while the co-ordinates were input by two operators on the flight deck of the aeroplane, only one operator entered the fateful co-ordinates at Air New Zealand's ground control computer. Livingstone is astonished that the sort of verifying disciplines used in companies to key in accounting data weren't used in this instance.

In evidence heard by the Royal Commission, the person in the airline's navigation section responsible for keying-in the changed co-ordinates says he made a series of typing errors. Justice Mahon found it difficult to understand: "It was scarcely conceivable that two digits could have been mistakenly typed out of a total of five." Livingstone agrees. "Even if he did make a mistake the procedures were slack that allowed him to make such a mistake." Whatever the mechanism, the fact remains the co-ordinate was changed at 1am in the morning before the flight. What's also extraordinary is that the the pilots - briefed on the safe route down McMurdo Sound - were not told of the change of flight path.

But that was not the only mistake. The tragically changed co-ordinate was radioed to the air-traffic controllers at McMurdo Station. Normal practice before each flight was to radio the degrees and minutes for each waypoint of the flight path, but on this occasion the information sent for the crucial waypoint was not a co-ordinate, simply the word "McMurdo".

The Commission was told the change came about because a symbol was entered in the wrong place on a data entry worksheet, causing the co-ordinate to be changed to a label on the printout used to read out the radio message. Justice Mahon's opinion was the change was "deliberately designed to conceal from the US authorities that the flight path had been changed" - probably because Air New Zealand knew the Americans would lodge objections to the new flight path. It may be possible the label "McMurdo" was a genuine mistake - a feature of the computer program used to list destinations and locations by name rather than by co-ordinate.

Either way, in one of the many "if only" statements that can be said about the disaster, had the waypoint been relayed as co-ordinate rather than a label, the air traffic controllers would have undoubtedly been alerted and the fateful course averted. On the the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, Livingstone, like a lot of people, continues to look for answers.