Plane Went Down Nearly Five Months Ago On Mount Elizabeth

A coroner in New Zealand has declared that the crew of a Twin Otter which went down on Mount Elizabeth in Antarctica five months ago is officially deceased. The three men were flying from the South Pole to the Italian base at Terra Nova Bay when the accident occurred.

The investigation fell to New Zealand authorities because the accident occurred in an area claimed by New Zealand.

The accident is also under investigation by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board. The three men on board the airplane were Canadian citizens, and their families watched the proceedings on a live video stream from Auckland. Radio New Zealand reports that the CTB said that preliminary information indicates that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane, and the court was told that the pilot checked in hourly as expected until the plane's ELT activated.

Rescuers did not reach the accident scene until two days after it occurred, and the nose of the plane was already buried in the snow, making it impossible to recover the bodies at that time. Another attempt to recover the remains will be made in October, when the Antarctic weather improves.

(File image courtesy of the National Science Foundation)

FMI: www.justice.govt.nz/courts/coroners-court/coroners/office-of-the-chief-coroner