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All 257 people on board died instantly. mountaineer keith woodford has his own ideas how new zealand's deadliest aviation disaster could have been avoided. >> if they had reacted 10 seconds earlier, there was a reasonable chance that the plane could have been able to climb out of it. so close. >> but why was the plane flying so close to the volcano? it turns out, the pilot and crew weren't where they thought they were. investigators discover that on the morning of november 28th, air new zealand flight ops changed 901's final flight coordinate. instead of flying their usual route down the middl...

>> we kept calling 901. others were also calling flight 901. no one had heard anything. >> there's still hope for finding survivors at 7:00 p.m. when air new zealand calls marina collins and asks if she's alone. >> and he said, i don't want to alarm you, but jim's flight is late. we haven't heard from him for a while. i suggest you get somebody to be with you. >> the weather is so bad it's 12 hours before rescuers finally spot the crash site. from the air, it looks like a smudge in the snow. >> when we came around the side of the mountain and saw the total devastation, i was shocked. it just d...

Base at the foot of mount erebus. >> i kept a log of everyone that was out and what they were doing just for safety sakes. >> 40 minutes from their frozen destination, passengers on flight 901 are standing at the windows, eager fir their first glimpse at the endless expanse of ice. >> captain collins radios to find out about current weather conditions on ross island and learns there's a huge problem. >> that particular day the mountain was completely whited out. >> robinson cautions captain collins about the low cloud cover that descend to 2,000 feet. >> i was keen to let him know that he shou...

Pretty hard to say much when you can't see anything. >> still sure of his safe position over the sound, captain collins continues his descent. then at 1500 feet, the captain's confidence is shattered. collins tells his crew that conditions, quote, don't look good at all and that he'll have to climb out of it. ominously, a minute later all transmission from flight 901 stops. >> then i started calling the field parties that were still on our listening watch to see if they had heard anything over the aircraft.

Deadliest aviation disaster could have been avoided. >> if they had reacted 10 seconds earlier, there was a reasonable chance that the plane could have been able to climb out of it. so close. >> but why was the plane flying so close to the volcano? investigators discover that on the morning of november 28th, air new zealand flight ops changed 901's final flight coordinate. instead of flying their usual route down the middle mcmurdo sound, the jet was shifted over lewis sound and directly into mount erebus. >> clearly the pilots couldn't see the mountain or they would have flown around it. >> i...