Lisbeth Eastment remembers the life of her big brother, Geoff Kerr. ‘I was the guardian of his secrets, his dreams and his ambitions, and forever the guardian of his memory.’
His niece, Lisbeth’s daughter, Esmé never met her uncle. In reflecting on the impact of his loss on his family and the full extent of the Erebus accident, Esmé considers the long-term mental trauma suffered by those left to pick up the pieces.
Lisbeth Eastment's reflections on Geoff Kerr
My brother Geoff was a child of the sixties and a teen of the seventies, a time of cultural and technological advancement. A childhood of exciting firsts like moon landings and the Concorde powering through the skies from Europe to the United States in under four hours. Colour television and enhanced telecommunications technology was bringing the wonders of the natural world all the way to New Zealand. Every main street had a travel agency or two, showcasing splendid models of sleek aircraft with glamorous logos like BOAC, Pan Am, and later Air New Zealand. In a household bursting with National Geographic magazines, it was inevitable that Geoff would become interested in flying and travel.
Our whakapapa is Taranaki, although we lived in Whanganui. With the Skyhawk jets regularly practising in the skies above us, Geoff was hooked on aviation (in all its forms, from hang gliding to spaceships). As a teenager, he wished to join the air force and train as a pilot. Unfortunately, the 6-foot 4-inch Geoff was rejected at his first recruitment interview because of his height. Our father had experienced this type of disappointment because he had failed an eyesight test prior to commencing officer training in the Royal Navy. With hindsight, Dad wished he had entered the commercial shipping industry, and advised Geoff that if he were to study business, he could enter the booming airline industry. It was advice Geoff heeded and he headed to Massey University in Palmerston North to do a business degree.
1979 had been an academically challenging year for Geoff at Massey. He was in his second year and was attempting to complete a four-year degree in three years. He wanted to be earning as soon as possible. He had a good grasp of economics and amused us all with his talent for marketing, but his accountancy papers were taking a lot of self-discipline to complete. He was a young man cooped up with his books with very little work-life balance. He was exhausted by the end of the academic year and was considering going ‘walkabout’ to recharge his batteries. Duly, he visited a travel agency and came home with a pamphlet about Air New Zealand’s scenic flights to Antarctica.
His decision to purchase a ticket for Air New Zealand flight TE901 was made with both his head and his heart. It was logistically a good idea as he would only need three days’ leave from his summer job. TE901 also had academic benefits. He would have the opportunity to fly in a DC-10, then seen as the next big thing in passenger aviation. Additionally, because passengers were encouraged to move around the plane during tourist flights to Antarctica, he could observe a commercial flight as a ‘product’ and apply this practical knowledge to his studies in 1980.
It would also satisfy the craving in his heart for adventure. Flying over the majestic landscapes of Antarctica was of particular appeal. His two favourite books were Fight for the Sky by Douglas Bader and expedition leader (Sir) John Hunt’s Ascent of Everest, which included a chapter by Sir Edmund Hillary. He specifically selected the 28 November flight because the commentary was originally to be provided by Hillary himself. [1] Our father, a school principal, lent Geoff the school’s camera to photograph his adventure and a notebook to scribe the commentary – his aim being to prepare a module that he could share with his students. Mum was delighted for him and offered her usual loving support, sadly because of the government policy of ‘carless days’ she would be unable to wave enthusiastically as he departed Whanganui.
Geoff’s twentieth birthday was on November 5th, 1979. He was at home studying before returning to university for his final exam of the year the following week. He and his good mate had lined up work for the summer in the wool stores. Naturally his birthday falling on Guy Fawkes Day always involved fireworks, but this year he was particularly anxious about his exam and decided to avoid all celebrations and remain at his desk throughout the day and evening. We lived on a hill and at 11pm he decided to head outside and watch the remaining action over the city. He found an unexploded skyrocket on the lawn and tried to launch it, but he was unsuccessful. Twenty-three days later he was dead. That memory of him failing to light the rocket, after devoting his day to studying on his final birthday, has been particularly haunting for me.
Geoff would have turned 65 in 2024, typically a time to retire and reflect on your achievements, your joys, and your sorrows. His friends will remember the mate who shared their love of motorcycling, who would stand in the debris of their student flat and meticulously iron his sheets, his contribution to the dinner table comprising mock whitebait fritters and saveloys. Most of all they will remember those bonds of friendship. As the song goes, ‘It’s been a long road without you my friend’.
As my big brother, Geoff was always there waiting for me, waiting for me to be born, waiting for me to catch up on our bike rides and beach walks, waiting outside school during those awkward teenage years to accompany me home, waiting for me to hop on the back of his motorbike and explore the roads less travelled, always with a grin, an encouraging burst of wit, always safe and dependable. I was the guardian of his secrets, his dreams and his ambitions, and forever the guardian of his memory.
The aftermath of the accident was a nightmarish scenario of waiting and exposure to some of the cruellest aspects of human nature. Geoffrey’s body was either not recovered or was unable to be identified. One of Geoff’s boyhood friends was a junior doctor involved in the identification of the victims and we knew everything had been done to try to find him. Nevertheless, one of the saddest aspects of having no identifiable remains is that you literally lose them. Someone else chooses where they are buried, what their casket looks like, the design of their headstone, who gets to come to the burial service and what that service is to be like. It is your son and brother who is being buried, but you are seated at the back behind the dignitaries [2]. Our extended whānau had no option but to watch the television news to pay their respects to Geoff at this final act of burial. Without a body the deceased is a missing person until legal proceedings can authorise a death certificate.
What is unique to losing someone in a national disaster is that empathy seems to be linked to the attention span of the news cycle. Initially, the nation and the local community were awash with genuine sympathy and support. However, as the weeks, months, and years of drama unfolded, the wider community, whilst claiming connection to the event have become immune, and empathy is sometimes replaced with ignorance. Since losing my parents and husband, nobody has ever said to me that ‘you should be over it by now’, but I have lost count of how many times I’ve heard and read that phrase with regards to losing loved ones in the Erebus disaster and sadly, other national disasters that have occurred since then. I believe this has been a barrier to the construction of a National Erebus Memorial. New Zealand is a nation of travellers and explorers, no more so than on 28 November 1979, and as a nation we should invest in the significance of formally acknowledging that dark day in our history when so many failed to come home.
[1] Edmund Hillary was scheduled to act as the inflight commentator for TE901 on 28 November 1979, but had to cancel because of other commitments. His long-time friend and climbing companion, Peter Mulgrew, stood in as guide. Sir Edmund Hillary would later marry Mulgrew’s widow, June, in 1989.
[2] The 44 unidentified bodies and human remains from the accident were buried in 16 caskets during a joint ceremony at Waikumete Cemetery in West Auckland on 22 February 1980.
Esmé Eastment – the victim count
I doubt that there would be many people who would disagree that the enduring perception of Erebus in the collective New Zealand consciousness is one of controversy, of injustice, and of endless litigation and relitigation. It is one of significance, remaining New Zealand’s greatest loss of life in a single event outside of war (pandemics excluded). It is endlessly politicised, arguably not without cause, given the behaviour of the government of the day. It took 20 years for the Mahon report to be tabled in Parliament. It took 30 years for Air New Zealand to apologise for not looking after victims’ whānau after the event. It took 40 years for the government to apologise for the actions that led to the crash, and for the way whānau were treated afterwards.
Were I to ask a historian how many victims there are from the Erebus disaster they would refer to the official death toll, thus 257 victims. Ask someone with experience in mental trauma and they would likely say there were at least a thousand – not deaths, but victims. Victims of trauma.
Trauma is hard to define. It is specific to each individual, and events that some may not find traumatic have an enormous impact on others. But there are some events and experiences that the majority of people would expect to be traumatic for those who survived them.
The Christchurch earthquakes, particularly for those who were in the CBD, surrounded by the debris, the injured, the dying, the sound of a city convulsing in pain, both geologically and metaphorically.
Whakaari (2019), the unimaginable experience of being trapped on an island that appears to be tearing itself apart around you, and the experience of being onshore, seeing the steam rise, knowing your loved one was on that island.
Pike River (2010), akin to Erebus in its politicisation, its litigation, in the alleged process and health and safety failings that led to the deaths of 29 sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, and partners, and ultimately even less accessible than Antarctica in 1979 for the recovery of their bodies.
You’d expect most reasonable people would recognise this. There are years of research into trauma, into PTSD. It's been reflected in popular media prior to and contemporary with Erebus, with shows such as M*A*S*H (1972–1983) displaying a nuanced understanding of the trauma process in otherwise comedic episodes.
Despite this exposure and general recognition, New Zealand, somewhere in this journey we have lost our way. We have lost our compassion for others, for those who lose their whānau in such nationally and internationally significant disasters.
If we ever had it in the first place.
But this isn’t meant to be a treatise on society’s failings towards the survivors of all major events, or even those ‘regular’ ones that affect everyone to different degrees. This is about Erebus.
Erebus is the final full stop in the stories of the dead, cutting their story off mid-sentence, in some cases only a few chapters in. Their legacies remained, their achievements, their children, their siblings, their parents. Their zest for life and the sense of adventure that spurred them to board the flight in the first place. But them? Their stories ended, to live on in photos on the wall, in memorial awards at their high schools, in the memories, the grief, and the anger of their whānau and friends that their potential had been cut short in a split second in the snow at the bottom of the world.
For the people who survived them, Erebus is a change of font in their story, from Times New Roman to Impact, a 72 point bold exclamation point out of nowhere in the middle of a sentence, where the spine of the book of their life bends back on itself and cracks under the pressure.
These people were victims too. New Zealand, we have forgotten that. With each new disaster, we continue to forget that.
As whānau, we spend the most time trying to ensure that our loved ones’ memories are not forgotten, that their memory is not condemned to be tainted with accusations of blame, of endless litigation, of years of ‘you should be over that by now, surely?’
Spoiler alert, we’re not. How could we be, when the very mention of Erebus continues to bring out the worst behaviours in people in person and online?
Let’s reframe the narrative. Let’s tell the stories of the other victims of Erebus, the ones who survived.
The story of the 16-year-old girl who was the first in her family to hear that the flight carrying her older brother had gone missing. The 17-year-old girl who two months later sat in a bus listening to her classmates play ‘Daniel’ by Elton John on repeat on the way to her seventh form leadership camp, trying to be stoic. Who was pushed to the back row at the interment at Waikumete, watching her mother, hunched with her grief, desperately trying to get past the politicians and airline execs who were blocking her view of the coffins containing the little, if any, remains of her eldest child that had been recovered from the snowy wreckage. Who was repeatedly scolded by her headmistress for choosing to forgo sitting bursary and scholarship, so she could go to the unveiling of what would be her brother’s and 43 others’ gravestones. The 19-year-old girl who left nursing training in her second year because she was exhausted from being surrounded by death, who hadn’t been able to face going to university like she had been planning in sixth form. A week before the 40th anniversary, now a mother in her fifties, paralysed with flashbacks when the flight from Auckland to New Plymouth her 31-year-old daughter was on deleted its ETA from the Air New Zealand website. The 31-year-old daughter, stuck on a plane that had been struck by lightning and returning to Auckland, circling Auckland airport for an hour due to the severity of the storm, fretting because she had no way of contacting her mum to tell her she was still alive. Knowing her mum was at home, feeling like she was 16 again, hearing the radio host announce that the plane carrying her only sibling had gone missing.
This is part of just one story. There are hundreds more, from the young girls who had to grow up being told by strangers and dignitaries that their father killed 257 people, to the people who had to completely rebuild their lives when almost every other family member was on that flight, to the people who were suddenly being raised by their grandparents, aunts, uncles.
Then there are those who went to Antarctica, not knowing what they were going to find when they landed on the ice for a recovery mission in one of the most inhospitable environments in the world. Their own words tell their own trauma best, matter of fact recollections of gloves soaked in human grease from handling burned bodies, the smell of aviation fuel, navigating the natural hazards of the site. Hazards like crevasses, or the scavenging skua gulls keen for a munch on the glut of easy meat. At the ends of the earth life finds a way regardless of the sensibilities of humans. But these sensibilities are part of what makes us human, what makes us capable of love. But to love is ultimately to grieve, and the events that lead to grief are often traumatic.
Every single person on that plane, on the ice after, or in the judge’s seat was loved by someone.
This isn’t just about a physical memorial, or even apologies. It is an acknowledgment that despite all the challenges whānau have faced since Erebus, their loved ones existed. That they mattered.
But also, that their trauma and their grief was real. That they have finally been seen and heard. These are the people of Erebus today.
He aha te mea nui o te ao
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
Esme Eastment RN MNurs (UoA), BA (VUW, maj. History & Classical Studies)
Top image: Geoff’s school prefect photo, at then Wanganui Boys College, 1977 (Whanganui City College).
Note: the memories on this page are in the writers' own words and do not necessarily reflect the views of Manatū Taonga.
Text and images on this page may not be reused without permission.
Read more memories like this: Reflections on Erebus series.
Images and text: Lisbeth and Esmé Eastment
