29 years on

29 years ago today, I walked down to the local dairy after school, to wait for the Evening Post to be delivered, and with it the latest breaking news on the Erebus disaster. I was 9 years old.

Much has changed since then.

The newspaper isn't the most up-to-date news source any more - we turn to the internet instead.
The Evening Post is no longer, having rolled into the morning paper, The Dominion, to become the Dominion Post.
Many 9 year olds are probably no longer allowed to walk to the dairy after school - if, indeed they are at home rather than after-school care (which didn't exist then).

A few weeks earlier I'd been buying double happy bangers, and tom thumb crackers. The Tom Thumbs cost 8c - and could be bought with the return on a Leed Lemonade bottle.

Back then, pretty much everyone knew someone who knew someone who lost a friend or family member in the disaster. The scale of today's crash was smaller, but 5 families and friends of the Air New Zealand, and CAA staff, and 2 German pilots will be grieving.

I was talking only the other night about how interesting it is to watch the TV shows which go over aircraft investigations. I wasn't expecting to have an example so close to home a couple of days later.

One of the good things (perhaps the only good thing) about crashes like this is that the Aircraft investigations are thorough, and the industry as a whole gets notified of the cause of the problem, steps are taken, procedures are implemented to prevent the same thing happening again. They say every crash makes flying safer (and you can't say that about the more likely cause of death we each face - from a car).

Small consolation for the families and friends of those who died this morning though.