Noel Marsh's sister Donna spent a year learning French so she could thank them. The night before the ceremonies, the families had a chance to thank the French authorities, who helped at the time of the tragedy, at a cocktail function in Perpignan. The families of the remaining two victims, pilot Brian Horrell, 52, and engineer Murray White, 37, did not travel to France for the ceremonies. "Out on the water was quite special because it was just the families." "It was an incredibly emotional 20 minutes," said Thompson. There they laid more wreaths and threw flowers into the sea.īrave faces gave way to tears in the more private ceremony as three New Zealand widows - Tracey Marsh, Sally Cook, wife of Civil Aviation Authority inspector Jeremy Cook, 58, and Jo Gyles, widow of engineer Mike Gyles, 49 - grieved alongside the widows of Norbert Kaeppel and Theodor Ketzer, two pilots from Germany's XL Airways who also died. The group then boarded two Coastguard vessels to be taken to a French naval vessel waiting beyond the breakwater at Canet which took them 7km off the coast to the crash site. One by one other family members came forward to do the same.Īir NZ deputy chief executive Norm Thompson laid a wreath of seven red roses, marking the seven lost, yellow sunflowers and greenery. Tracey Marsh, the widow of 35-year-old Christchurch flight engineer Noel Marsh, her baby Katie in a front pack, laid her hand on the greenstone inscribed with the seven names, a gesture believed by Maori to infuse the spirits of the living with the dead. The widows and their children also laid handmade cards, stories and drawings below the plaque. Residents of Perpignan watched as the grieving families and friends, of the five New Zealanders and two Germans who died, laid wreaths and flowers at monument. In France, families of those killed in the Airbus crash stood on the Canet-en-Roussillon beach yesterday to watch the unveiling of a plaque of greenstone and local stone. She said it was "a very emotional time but it was just nice to be able as a family to grieve and share together". Judith Frith, daughter of passenger Geoffrey Buchanan, said the service was "beautiful". He called for the controversy over blame to be set aside, saying there could be no single reason for the crash.įamily members of the 44 lost at Mt Erebus whose remains were never recovered or identified gathered for a service at the Erebus memorial at Waikumete Cemetery, West Auckland yesterday afternoon. "It took the loss of 257 lives on this day 30 years ago to teach us the lessons in crisis management that we hope we never have to apply again." Those lost at Perpignan were also the best in their field, he said, but the recent crash was handled very differently. New Zealanders were urged to put the Erebus controversy behind them as families mourned those lost there and at Perpignan at emotional ceremonies around the world yesterday.Ĭeremonies were held in Auckland, Christchurch, France and at Scott Base in Antarctica to remember the 257 people who died when an Air New Zealand DC10 crashed into Mt Erebus on November 28, 1979, and the seven who died when an Air NZ Airbus crashed off the coast of France on the same date a year ago.Īt two ceremonies in Auckland and one in Christchurch the message from Air NZ's top executives was the same: another apology for the way the airline neglected to support grieving relatives at the time of the tragedy and an appeal to the nation to put the controversy behind it.Ĭhief executive Rob Fyfe said the Erebus pilot Jim Collins and First Officer Greg Cassin had been chosen to command Flight 901 because they were among the airline's best.
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