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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The stature of this book matches the man,
By
This review is from: Verdict on Erebus (Hardcover)
Iconic. Masterful. Insightful. Thoughtful. Impartial.
One man's recounting of the disparate interests and powerful forces brought to bear in the aftermath of a tragedy which not only rocked a small island nation, the consequences of which rippled around the world. Far from an established expert in any of the technical and operational matters of the subject investigation, Peter Mahon applied his searching intellect, enormous integrity and great legal and judicial experience, to mastering an appreciation of even the smallest details of his Warrant. He was determined to execute his task of obtaining the truth behind the deaths of 257 people, to the dismay of many in the airline and government at the time, and for which he paid the ultimate price of professional ruination and personal ill-health. There can be few who do not recall the measured, magisterial language of his ringing indictment that he felt he was "forced reluctantly to say that [he] had to listen to an orchestrated litany of lies" in the course of his Royal Commission. I found especially breathtaking his account of his visit to McMurdo and the crash site during his investigations, on the first anniversary of the disaster, in which he experienced airborne whiteout in conditions almost identical to those prevailing a year before. But, to me, the by far the most chilling encapsulation of the Erebus crash - by any who have written on this subject ever - can be found in the closing pages (295-6) of this book; the economical eloquence of Peter Mahon's command of the English language repays careful reading: "By a navigational error for which the crew was not responsible, and about which they were uninformed, an aircraft had flown not into McMurdo Sound but into Lewis Bay, and there the elements of nature had so combined, at a fatal concidence of time and place, to translate an administrative blunder in Auckland into an awesome disaster in Antarctica. "Much has been written and said about the weather hazards of Antarctica, and how they may combine to create a spectacular but hostile terrain, but for my purposes the most definitive illustration of these hidden perils was the wreckage which lay on the mountainside, showing how the forces of nature, if given the chance, can sometimes defeat the flawless technology of man. "For the ultimate key to the tragedy lay here, in the white silence of Lewis Bay, the place to which the airliner had been unerringly guided by its micro-electronic navigation system, only to be destroyed, in clear air and without warning, by a malevolent trick of the polar light." Peter Mahon's death from pneumonia on 11 August 1986, two years after this book was published, leaves us with only this (as well as his offical report) as a revealing legacy of a truly remarkable and courageous man.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The real reasons why 257 people needlessly died,
This review is from: Verdict on Erebus (Hardcover)
This book by the late Peter Mahon details his investigations into the crash in Antarctica of Flight 901 on 28 November 1979, in which all 257 passsengers and crew were killed. A man of wide experience in the judicial system, and one of high intelligence and competence, Peter Mahon's work is a literary masterpiece. Mahon was criticised and publicly ridiclued by many observers (especially Air New Zealand) in 1981 following his controversial report of the Royal Commission. There are few who will argue that Mahon failed to explore almost every avenue of this accident, but despite this he never received the recognition he deserved. His book is a legacy of his determination to uncover the truth of this appalling accident. It relates in a very compelling way the various interviews, overseas travel to key sites, courtroom proceedings and attitudes experienced during the course of the inquiry.
Many observers will always believe it was a simple case of "pilor error", but Peter Mahon saw it very differently; his books provides conclusive evidence of the airline's administrative blunders, the weather (which played a crucial part, and on which the aircrew were not fully briefed), and many other aspects of an accident which should never have happened. When reading this book, one cannot fail to be impressed by the impartial manner in which Mahon tells the truth of New Zealand's worst disaster. Anyone who reads this book is also encouraged to read the 1981 report of the Royal Commission.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The record of an honest and thorough search for the truth,
This review is from: Verdict on Erebus (Hardcover)
This review is written in late 2010, and New Zealand is now generally as corrupt as any other Western "democracy." But that wasn't always so -- only a few decades ago people of the highest integrity could often be found in senior "establishment" positions. One such was High Court Judge Peter Mahon, appointed Royal Commissioner to investigate and report on Air New Zealand's flight TE901 which crashed into the slopes of Mount Erebus in Antarctica on November 28 1979, killing all 257 people on board.
After much thorough, diligent work, as recorded in this book, Mahon cleared the aircrew of responsibility, and concluded that Air New Zealand had presented to him "an orchestrated litany of lies." In his usual calm, clear style, Mahon describes how his findings and other actions upset various powerful people, among them:-- - The New Zealand Prime Minister (who verbally attacked Mahon in public). - Air New Zealand management, and also its directors (ditto -- in public and privately). - Lloyds underwriters (Mahon wasn't deceived by their claim to have disassociated themselves from the conduct of Air New Zealand's case). - The US Navy (Mahon had told them he was aware of the erasure of the last 4min 42sec of the McMurdo Air Traffic Control tape that would have been recording at the time of the crash). Mahon found that the flight crew (and previous crews) had been briefed for a route passing along the flat sea ice of McMurdo Sound, when in fact the route entered into the aircraft's navigation computer had been changed without their knowledge to pass across Mount Erebus. This, combined with the so-called "flat light" illusion and lack of forward radar return, made the crash almost inevitable. He also found that the flight plan routinely transmitted by Air New Zealand to McMurdo Air Traffic Control was indeed changed for the fatal flight, but in a way that seemed designed to conceal that it now passed directly across Mount Erebus. For what it's worth I recount a conspiracy theory that circulated amongst some White Nationalists at the time:-- the crash was deliberately pre-programmed; i) to permanently thwart Ernst Zündel's imminent "publicity lark" of flying a Boeing 747 over "Neuschwabenland" to drop Nazi flags, toast the Führer, etc, and ii) to kill the Aryan hero and conqueror of Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, who was to have been the commentator on the fatal flight. (In fact Sir Edmund withdrew at the last minute, being substituted by Peter Mulgrew). Mahon wisely says nothing about this, concluding that the crash was simply a "major blunder," an "appalling mistake," etc.
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