Current mood:

curious

Ansett New Zealand Flight 703 Crash

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansett_New_Zealand_Flight_703

As a former employee, I'm on one hand amazed and on the other astonished to learn that Ansett New Zealand, (ZK) - a subsidiary of Ansett Australia, (AN) lost a Dash-8 turbo-prop aircraft in an air crash back in 1995. I had heard of this many years ago while on work experience at Ansett's Info tech department at Head Office in Melbourne, but had long since forgotten it happened. 

The flight crashed while operating a flight from Auckland, on the North Island of New Zealand, to Palmerston North, a small town located in the South-West of the same island. The aircraft came down in farmland near to the town, killing one flight attendant and three passengers on board. All other passengers and crew hobbled away. A book has been written on the accident, however as I only re-discovered that this actually happened only a few moments ago, I have not yet had the chance to read up on it.

Ancient history of course. Ansett New Zealand vanished in 2000 when Ansett Australia sold it off (in Ansett's sell-everything off phase), to a company that re-named it Qantas New Zealand, which in turn went broke in April of 2001. This was then followed shortly thereafter by Ansett Australia which by complete co-incidence, folded five months later. 

Since neither company still exists, and finding any other material on the subject is a fairly difficult exercise, its a task I probably wont pursue.