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 1920 - 1995 (75 years)
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| Name |
Eric James Omundsen |
| Born |
9 Aug 1920 |
New Zealand  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
3 Oct 1995 |
New Zealand |
| Notes |
- The Erebus Enquiry.
Eric worked for the NZ Civil Aviation Authority (a Crown Entity).
He was called to give evidence to an enquiry into the Air New Zealand flight 901 Mt Erebus plane crash tragedy which occurred on the 28th Nov 1979, killing all 237 passengers & 20 crew.
The original report by Ron Chippendale put the blame of the crash onto the pilot, but a Royal Commission of Enquiry was set up headed by Justice Peter Mahon QC who came to a different conclusion.
He maintained the crash was caused by a correction made to the coordinates of the flight path by Air NZ the night before the disaster, coupled with a failure to inform the flight crew of the change, with the result that the aircraft, instead of being directed by computer down McMurdo Sound (as the crew had been led to believe), was instead rerouted to a path toward Mount Erebus
Justice Mahon's report accused Air New Zealand of presenting "an orchestrated litany of lies"
The reason the Civil Aviation Authority was involved is because they had approved a flight plan from NZ to Antarctica in 1977, which had a major error in it, and entailed flying almost directly over the 12,448-foot (3,794 m) peak of Mount Erebus.
However, due to a typing error in the coordinates when the route was computerised, the printout from Air New Zealand's ground computer system corresponded to a southerly flight path down the middle of the wide McMurdo Sound (the flight path the military use), about 27 miles (43 km) to the west of Mount Erebus.
The majority of the previous 13 flights had also entered this flight plan's coordinates into their aircraft navigational systems and flown the McMurdo Sound route, unaware that the route flown did not correspond with the approved route.
Unfortunately due to the captain of a previous flight finding errors in his flight plan, Flight 901,s flight plan was updated by Air NZ (but without advising the crew), putting Flight 901 on a collision course with Mt Erebus.
There were three witnesses appearing for the NZ Civil Aviation Authority, Edgar Kippenberger, Jack Spence, and Eric Omundsen.
There is a video of Justice Mahon?s enquiry available on You Tube called "Erebus-The Aftermath"
Details also on the Erebus web site ;
https://www.erebus.co.nz/
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| Person ID |
I25 |
Omundsen |
| Last Modified |
10 Nov 2021 |
| Father |
James (Jim) Edvart Omundsen, b. 14 Apr 1893, Dannervirke New Zealand , d. 11 Sep 1993, New Plymouth, New Zealand (Age 100 years) |
| Mother |
Amy Eaton, b. 1894, New Zealand , d. 4 Oct 1979, New Plymouth New Zealand (Age 85 years) |
| Married |
6 Oct 1915 |
| Photos
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| Family ID |
F219 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family 2 |
Akiko Ota, b. 18 Sept 1930, Hiroshima Japan , d. 19 May 2021, Wellington New Zealand (Age 90 years) |
| Last Modified |
3 Oct 2021 |
| Family ID |
F21 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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