Chief of Air Force presents medal to former Army sergeant for Erebus recovery operation work
Chief of Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Clark presented a rare medal at Base Woodbourne yesterday to retired New Zealand Army Sergeant Neville Jones for his service in Antarctica during the Mount Erebus disaster.
Mr Jones received the medal for his part in the recovery operation after the Erebus air disaster. He was a driver, private rank equivalent, at the time of his deployment to assist with the recovery operation for the disaster.
Air New Zealand Flight TE901 crashed on the north slope of Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica, on November 28, 1979, with the loss of all 257 passengers and crew.
So far, only 330 medals had been awarded and of those only 16 were awarded to Army Air Load team members.
Mr Jones was on the first of his three tours of duty with Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica.
The medal was instituted in November 2006 to recognise the service of New Zealanders and citizens of the United States and other countries who were involved in the difficult and unpleasant recovery of bodies, crash investigation and victim identification.
“The police were up on the mountain, we were on the ice runway,” Jones said. “We were taking the bodies that were palletised and loading them on to the aircraft bound for Auckland for identification.”
Mr Jones belonged to 1AASO Company, which was later renamed to 5 Movement Squadron. He came from a background in parachuting and airdrops.
The award is seldom awarded to members of the New Zealand Defence Force because the majority of the work done on the recovery operation was performed by members of the New Zealand Police or their specialist contractors, especially during the victim identification stage in Auckland.
The NZDF personnel were mainly aircraft loading teams based in Antarctic for the summer season and a smaller number of Army and RNZAF personnel who worked with reception and storage of the victims when they arrived in Auckland and were placed into the mortuary area of the University of Auckland School of Medicine.
