More than one hundred family members of victims of New Zealand's worst ever air disaster on the icy slopes of Mt Erebus in Antarctica will attend a memorial service at Scott Base tomorrow, weather permitting.
Those attending would experience an occasion which promised to be "very emotional and very difficult" but one which would allow them "a sense of connection", Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said today.
Air New Zealand, in conjunction with the RNZAF, and Antarctic New Zealand, will fly family members to Scott Base in a Boeing 757 tomorrow morning.
Fyfe said many families had expressed a desire to visit the site after Air New Zealand was criticised for flying only six family members to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the disaster in which 237 passengers and 20 crew members lost their lives on November 28, 1979.
However, tommorrow's service was weather dependent and only had a short window of opportunity, according to the mission controller for the RNZAF Antarctica Season, Tony Davies. Weather conditions would be checked early tomorrow morning before the five-hour flight south and the possible back-up days would only last until Saturday.
The flight was a credit to the RNZAF, Antarctica NZ chief executive Lou Sanson said. The mission was "do-able" because of the availability of the Boeing 757, he said.
"It's minus 15 degrees down there at the moment," he said, adding that the families would be briefed about the conditions before they took off.
However, the 104 family members, selected to travel to the Antarctic after a ballot involving all those wanting to go, would not get to the actual site of Mt Erebus.
Mr Davies said last year's service proved it was too dangerous to helicopter the six family members to the mountainside because of weather conditions involving high winds and other problems and this year's service would be conducted by Christchurch's Dean Peter Beck at Scott Base.
One of the readings at the service would be given by a nurse, Denise Roper, whose father, Hugh Francis Christmas, was one of the victims. Forty three bodies were never recovered off the mountain.
After the flight to the ice, family would take a 40 minute bus trip to Scott Base where the outdoor service would be held and then returned to the plane for the immediate flight back to Christchurch.
The number of staff on the flight had been minimised as much as possible to allow the maximum number of families to attend the service, Mr Fyfe said.
"Ideally we would like the remaining 25 families to have the chance to visit also," he said, adding that it would be up to Government and other agencies to prioritise any future flights.
Largely because of the Erebus disaster, New Zealand has lost more people than any other nation on Antarctica, Mr Sanson said.
NZPA