Mt Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano, casts its long shadow over Ross Island and McMurdo Sound.Ĭaptain Jim Collins eased the aircraft into a final roll to starboard as Mulgrew entered, bringing it onto a southerly heading once more. Now he found himself a willing commentator on these tourist flights to the ice and the time had come to earn his keep. Afterwards, chaffing at business life and unable to settle, he had taken a gaff-rigged 40-footer around Cape Horn and was nursing dreams of an attempt on the Northwest Passage. He was also a distinguished Antarctican in his own right, having accompanied Hillary on that wild overland dash to the South Pole in ’58. A climbing buddy of Ed Hillary, Mulgrew had lost his legs to pulmonary thrombosis and frostbite in the Himalayas, and now got about on prosthetics. Sensing the time was right, John Mulgrew excused himself and made his way forward to the flight deck.
#MOUNT EREBUS DISASTER TRUTH WINDOWS#
The jet, which had been gradually shedding height, rounded out of a leisurely turn and levelled, bringing the starboard windows into play once more. What a lark to be cruising in shirt sleeves more than a mile above the frozen wastes, and about to glimpse the dazzling landscape through which Scott and Shackleton once trod as they courted fame and danger. For crew and paying. guests alike, it was special. More an airborne party than a commercial flight, TE901 had none of the sober formality and numbing routine of scheduled travel. Air New Zealand cabin crew mingled with the day trippers, recharging glasses, dispensing food. Others cradled cameras or leaned across seats, pressing faces against windows to better see the intricate lattice of sea and ice that stretched away below the aircraft towards the horizon. One was caught on film as he relaxed in the aisle, glass to lips.
Polar sun flooded the DC10’s cabin, haloing passengers in ethereal light.
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