On the 28th of November 1979, the fourth largest air disaster in the world occurred on the icy slopes of Mount Erebus, deep in Antarctica and 50 km from Scott Base. The 237 passengers and 20 crew were all killed instantly on impact, and their bodies and the wreckage were spread over an area 500 m long and 100 m wide. It had started out as a scenic flight, the 14th to Antarctica, and it had ended in tragedy. It was suffered, too, by an airline company which had maintained the highest standards of aviation safety.

In an account of Scott's last Antartic expedition in 1910, Cherry Garrard wrote of the “worst journey in the world,” and he said, “I have seen Fuji, the most dainty and graceful of mountains—and also Kanchenjunga; only Mechelangelo among men could have conceived such grandeur.