FAMILY MATTERS by Jude Dobson

Jude Dobson | 28th November 2009

A poignant anniversary

Mount Erebus - this time 30 years ago it was the name of a place most New Zealanders had never even heard of. Just a couple of days later, it would be etched in our minds forever. On November 28, 1979, all 237 passengers and 20 crew of Air New Zealand flight TE 901 were killed when their plane flew into the side of Mt Erebus.

I remember it vividly. I imagine most New Zealanders do. It is a JFK or Princess Diana moment  in which you can instantly recall what you were doing when you heard the news. I was just a few days short of turning 13, finishing off my Form Two year at Manukau Intermediate (now renamed Royal Oak). I was getting ready to move on to Epsom Girls' Grammar and had recently been to the uniform shop with my mum to buy the pattern and material to make the summer uniform. Yes, that was a viable option, and many took it). We also bought the hideous "Cilla'' sandals that were uniform spec.

It's strange, the silly things you remember. Mum didn't need to get the winter school uniform pattern as we had been promised the grown-out-of, hand-me-down of her friend's daughter.

That friend was Maria Collins, wife of the late Jim Collins, who captained the ill-fated TE 901. My father was a long-serving pilot with NAC, the airline that had amalgamated with Air New Zealand some 18 months earlier. In this small country all the pilots knew each other.

I remember the television newsreader that night saying there was an "overdue'' aircraft. I recall more vividly the newscaster saying the words, "The aircraft has now run out of fuel. Again, I say, the aircraft has now run out of fuel''.

I remember realising at that point, as many people must have, that the plane was down. "Overdue'' meant in my 12-year-old brain that maybe it had just got lost somewhere. But running out of fuel left no doubt. It had crashed.

The next morning I thought of the girl whose uniform I was about to wear the next year who now had no dad. I felt sick for her. I had never worried about saying, "Bye'' to my
dad as I skipped off to school and he went off to fly passengers around the country. I just always presumed he would come home safely. I never gave it a second thought.

I do remember walking to the school bus stop that morning suddenly feeling intensely lucky he was here. That emotion was swiftly followed by terrible guilt that I hadn't hugged him hard enough as I ran out the door late and hurrying to reach the bus stop on time.

Twenty nine years later, I had a similar "lucky'' feeling when I woke to learn an Airbus had gone down off the coast of France and instantly rang my brother, who flies them. I was so relieved to hear his voice.

In the mayhem of that day, when I was a mother-help backstage with two children in a musical theatre production, I had moments of feeling quite disconnected... a world away.
So I sent a long text to my brother telling him I loved him.

My connections to these tragedies were close, yet I did not personally know anyone who died in them. Still, I felt a real sense of loss on behalf of those people who did. It's a terrible sight to see pictures of the koru floating on the water or on an icy mountainside. Gut-wrenching.

Anniversaries are times when those awful dates in history come to the fore again, but for those people who do not share the dinner table anymore with the ones they love, it is an everyday burden. To those travelling back to Antarctica and to France this week, Godspeed to you and kia kaha.