Qantas to Antarctica

I’m sure the passengers of the Air New Zealand flight 901 thought the same when they set off on just such a sightseeing tour in 1979, unfortunately flying at low altitude led to a collision with Mount Eribus during a ‘white-out’, and there were no surivors. The problem occured because the pilots at ANZ often dropped below permitted flight levels to give their passengers a better view, and on this occasion it started snowing heavily which disorientated the crew, and due to the mountain being covered in snow it was not visible.

I did a google trawl for a link to give you the history…..

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/NZDisasters/Erebus.asp

It was Air New Zealand who blamed Captain Jim Collins for the Accident, however the reason they were off course is the wrong flight plan was fed into the FMC by the people at Auckland airport!!

Im sure Qantas used to fly these trips before, not sure why they stopped

…and you can also choose to make the trip offered by Antarctica XXI (http://www.antacticaxxi.com); they carry people to King George Island via Aerovías DAP (www.dap.cl) and then they take a ship that navigates on Antarctic waters for almost a week.
I don’t know if Adventure Network International is still flying to Antarctica from Punta Arenas or Port Stanley.

Yeah, when my Grandfather worked for ANZ he went along on one of those flights – thankfully not that one. Due to his position in the company he received a full accident report. I’ve read it once or twice and they were way off they designated path.

Still, when done properly I think it is an amazing trip and good to see it’s back up again. I wonder if ANZ would ever start it up again after their loss.

I’m sure the passengers of the Air New Zealand flight 901 thought the same when they set off on just such a sightseeing tour in 1979, unfortunately flying at low altitude led to a collision with Mount Eribus during a ‘white-out’, and there were no surivors. The problem occured because the pilots at ANZ often dropped below permitted flight levels to give their passengers a better view, and on this occasion it started snowing heavily which disorientated the crew, and due to the mountain being covered in snow it was not visible.

I did a google trawl for a link to give you the history…..

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/NZDisasters/Erebus.asp

wow, that must be a sight to see…spectacular sights there i can imagine

That oughta be a great experience.

We have to make do with flights to Lapland! 😀 except we have a lot of planes flying the polar route, couldn’t they drop down and say there is the North Pole? :p

That oughta be a great experience.