Passenger ticket

This Air New Zealand ticket was issued to Sheena Hudson for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica on 21 November 1979, one week before the fatal crash of Air New Zealand flight 901 on Mt Erebus, Ross Island, on 28 November 1979. All 257 people on board were killed. It remains the worst civil disaster in New Zealand's history.

Sightseeing flights to Antarctica had started in February 1977 and were very successful. Expert commentators such as Sir Edmund Hillary accompanied the flights. Sheena Hudson was a passenger on the 11-hour return sightseeing flight on 21 November 1979. She had 'an amazing flight and I was pretty shattered when the crash happened the next week. I had wanted to see Antarctica and it was magic'. The flight inspired her to apply as a general hand at Scott Base in 1985.