We gave a short summary of this awful event on the occasion of its 30th anniversary (see post). Broadcaster Paul Holmes has revisited it with a book launched on Monday night. We haven't had a chance to read it (and with the number of "to be read" books on the table that will take at least a few weeks!), but here is a shortened version of book guru Graham Beattie's blog post:
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He has taken an immensely complicated subject - the crash of Air New Zealand flight TE 901 on Antarctica's Mt.Erebus in November 1979 - and having read everything ever written on the subject, official and unofficial, and conducting scores of interviews, and doing an immense and impressive amount of research, he has presented us with a book that is gripping, riveting and totally readable and accessible. I couldn't put it down.
Publisher Kevin Chapman of Hachette [New Zealand] said in introducing Paul Holmes to the audience last night said that this was an unapologetically crusading book and it certainly is that. As retired law lecturer Stuart Macfarlane says in his foreword "Paul Holmes has written the book on the Erebus scandal that has been crying out to be written ever since some members of the old Air New Zealand management ot away with the greatest cover-up and wrongful passing of blame in New Zealand's history".
Macfarlane should know because he is the author of The Erebus Papers, the" Erebus encyclopedia", and he is widely regarded as the authority on the subject.
In his remarks last night Holmes didn't pull any punches - “Despite the Privy Council agreeing with Mahon completely on causation... Chippindale never, ever, changed his mind or conceded an inch. He was unbelievable and he had the full support and the might of a malevolent and malignant Prime Minister [Robert Muldoon] behind him.
He also paid tribute to the Collins family - “This is a night for the good people. There are so many special people amongst us here who have fought the good corner... and fought for the Collins family for decades. They have all heard of each other, but several of them have never met each other.
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