Plane Found In Antarctica Carried 257 When Lost

A group of five men who went to Antarctica Sunday to lay a wreath at the site of a deadly, yet mysterious crash did much more than conduct a simple memorial. They found the wreckage.

The Air New Zealand DC-10 carried 237 passengers and 20 crew members from Christchurch on a nonstop flight toward the bottom of the world when it collided with Mount Erebus. Why the aircraft impacted the mountain at just 1500 feet MSL, remains a mystery -- and a source for debate even now, 25 years later.

Investigators concluded the accident was probably caused by pilot error. But a judicial inquiry later found that Air New Zealand covered up the true cause of the accident -- someone had wrongly altered the coordinates on the DC-10's inertial guidance system without telling the flight crew.

"Most certainly the co-ordinates were wrongly programmed; the pilots were not advised of that," said New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff. "Other measures ought perhaps to have been taken by the crew at the time when they were uncertain of their position."

The wreckage was discovered after an unusually warm Antarctic spring thawed enough ice to make the wreckage plainly visible. The five men who went to the site for the memorial spotted parts of the DC-10s fuselage, an engine and some cargo netting.

There's no indication yet whether any sort of salvage will be attempted.

FMI: www.airnz.co.nz, http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/NZDisasters/Erebus.asp