Episodes

  • White Silence - Trailer
    Nov 6 2019
    On November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand airliner took off from Auckland Airport on a sightseeing trip to Antarctica. There were 257 people on board. Hours later everyone was dead. Somehow, the plane had flown directly into the Erebus volcano. This was a disaster that shattered a country’s psyche. In White Silence, Michael Wright and Katy Gosset explore why New Zealand’s deadliest disaster was also its most controversial; why a nation was incapable of moving on; and why it was captured by one famous phrase: ‘an orchestrated litany of lies’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    3 mins
  • Episode One - The break-in
    Nov 7 2019
    On November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand DC10 took off from Auckland Airport on a sightseeing trip to Antarctica. It never returned. What do the families remember of that fateful day? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    38 mins
  • Episode Two - The caravan
    Nov 8 2019
    Whose fault was it? Investigators sift through the evidence and reach a shocking conclusion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Episode Three - All hell
    Nov 9 2019
    With the pilots’ reputations in tatters, a second investigation into the crash unearths appalling mistakes and a sensational new theory for what caused the crash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Episode Four - The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock
    Nov 10 2019
    ‘An orchestrated litany of lies’ is ingrained into New Zealand’s collective consciousness. Justice Peter Mahon didn’t have to say that, but he did. It would prove the making of him, and the ruin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • Episode Five - New World Order
    Nov 11 2019
    In 1981, New Zealand was changing. The baby boomers had come of age, and the South African rugby tour was about to tear the country apart. When the Mahon report landed right in the middle of this, the country was ready for its first big conspiracy theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    46 mins
  • Episode Six - White Silence
    Nov 12 2019
    40 years after the Erebus disaster, there is still no national memorial to the victims and no consensus on exactly what happened that day in 1979. Why has New Zealand been so hopelessly unable to deal with its worst-ever disaster? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Episode Seven - Playing Through
    Nov 27 2019
    A special bonus episode of White Silence for November 28 - the anniversary of the Erebus disaster. Bringing together stories from listeners like Air NZ staff who had to work through the tragedy, a teenager's 40-year trauma finally brought to a close and an unlikely golf tournament played in the shadow of Erebus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    41 mins