Death flight 901: the Erebus disaster

A film about the Air New Zealand DC10 plane crash at Mt Erebus in Antarctica on November 28, 1979 and the judicial process of apportioning blame. Includes footage of the wreckage and sequences filmed inside the courtroom at the Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

producer/director

John Keir

production company

New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation

Sonar Productions

Duration

00:52:00:00

Production places

New Zealand

Production dates

1981

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

015881

Language

English

Subject categories

Climate, Environment, Natural Resources & Disasters → Disasters

Climate, Environment, Natural Resources & Disasters → Natural history

Communications, Infrastructure, & Transport → Aircraft accidents

Communications, Infrastructure, & Transport → Airplanes

Communications, Infrastructure, & Transport → Disasters

Documentary

Documentary → Documentary films - New Zealand

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Law

History → Disasters

Short films

Short films → Short films - New Zealand

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Holdings

16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/77576--death-flight-901-the-erebus-disaster/ |title=Death flight 901: the Erebus disaster |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=22 June 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

New Zealand, 1981

Please note