![]() ![]() Just get in touch to arrange a conversation with one of the team or if you’re ready for us to find the perfect person for you, send us your brief. We’re here if you need help defining a role or brief, specialist insight to help shape your ideas or expert help with your recruitment process. Forever changing general approaches to travel safety is Mahon’s legacy. He published a bestseller Verdict on Erebus, which provides detailed evidence of the airline executive’s mistakes. Peter Mahon will always be remembered as a figure who challenged the establishment, and for producing one of the most direct, undeviating verdicts. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Jim Collins Memorial Award by the New Zealand Airline Pilots Association for exceptional contributions to air safety. Some experts still argue Mahon’s judgement was unbalanced, but he has become an important figure in New Zealand’s history. Mahon died in 1986, but his findings had an enduring impact around the world. Before 1981, most investigators tended to trace all transport accidents back to an individual whereas Mahon shifted the focus toward systematic failures that enabled the human error. This kind of conclusion was revolutionary at the time. His report is regarded as ground-breaking for its insight into organisational failure. Mahon’s claims cost him his career, as he was forced to resign. The council concluded that Mahon’s evidence did not support his report and that he had breached the rules of natural justice because he overlooked the airline’s side of the story. However, the court of appeal overturned Mahon’s finding. Mahon went onto controversially accuse the Air New Zealand of a cover-up. Mahon said in his report, “the single dominant and effective cause of the disaster was the mistake made by those airline officials who programmed the aircraft to fly directly at Mt Erebus…”. The pilots had not been notified of the mistake. He decided that they had fed the wrong flight path into the aircraft’s navigation system, aiming it directly into the mountain. In his 1981 report, he pointed the finger at Air New Zealand. The nation had blamed air flight captain Jim Collins for the crash, but Mahon disagreed. Mahon was given the job to determine whether any “culpable act” had caused the disaster, but controversy soon arose when he cleared the pilots of any negligence. This would become the most significant case in Mahon’s career. On 7th July 1980, a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Erebus disaster began. Mahon’s first major trial was the Parker-Hulme murder case in 1954, where he was a junior counsel for the prosecution. It was here he learned the trade and was mentored by Sir Arthur Donnelly. He began his legal career when he joined Raymond, Donnelly & Co. He spent two years in the military, returning from the war in 1946. ![]() Long before Mahon became a renowned trial attorney, he served in 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force as a second lieutenant. The crash is New Zealand’s deadliest peacetime disaster, and public outcry led to Mahon’s inquiry. Erebus, killing 257 passengers and crew on board. The tragedy occurred on 28th November 1979, when a tourist jet crashed into Mt. His condemnation of the airline for the Erebus disaster won him appraisal from many, but also strong criticism. ![]() Peter Mahon became the most famous judge in New Zealand when he accused Air New Zealand of an “orchestrated litany of lies”.
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