"The crash of Flight 901 was the loneliest of the world's worst air disasters. On 28 November 1979, the Air New Zealand DC10 with 257 people aboard took off from Auckland International Airport and flew 2000 miles southwards to the Antarctic, to plunge into the slopes of Mount Erebus, a 12,000-foot volcano. Nine hours later, a US Navy aircraft from McMurdo Sound sighted the wreckage - a brown smear on the ice. Nobody survived. Yet for all its isolatioitw as one of the best documented catastrophes. The aircraft's electronic sensors were working and decipherable. Almost every passenger on the sightseeing trip carried cameras and shot film up to the alst second. This was painstakingly salvaged and developed. And Antarctic weather scientists were monitoring local weather patterns, and receiving sophisticated film from satellites. But still the cause eluded investigators. ... The crew was blamed... A Royal Commission headed by a forthright High Court judge, dug deep into the planning and execution of the flight. The result was a story which is eerie in its implications for airmen. Even with the most modern instruments available, nature can still spring traps beyond prediction and even the best run airline could become the victim of a computer error."--Book jacket.