Judgment on Erebus is narrative nonfiction at its most compelling and unsettling. Commanded by one of Air New Zealand’s most meticulous and cautious pilots, a sightseeing airliner inexplicably crashes into an active Antarctic volcano in broad daylight, causing the world’s fourth-worst aviation disaster. The New Zealand government’s Office of Air Accidents Investigation soon publishes an official report attributing the disaster to pilot error. Skeptical, an aroused public demands an “independent” official inquiry. Realizing that he badly needs a second investigator to confirm the first one’s findings, an imperious Prime Minister selects for the post a distinguished High Court judge he believes will be a team player. After conducting his own extensive inquiry into the crash, though, Justice Peter Mahon reaches a verdict on the cause(s) of and culpability for the devastating loss of life on Mt. Erebus that is totally incompatible with the government’s earlier in-house report. All hell breaks loose. One of the two official investigators must be gravely mistaken—or lying—but which one and why? Years of political, legal, and judicial pyrotechnics commence to answer that question. Meanwhile, a stricken nation mourns its 257 dead. Sheehan takes a fresh look at Mahon’s evidence for concluding that the national airline itself was responsible for the tragic loss of life, which the government immediately tried to cover up with a well-organized, multi-tentacled, multi-phased, and aggressive attempt to pin the accident on the well-respected dead pilots. She also movingly relates what befell the judge after an enraged Prime Minister turned on him. This twist gives a superb political and legal thriller its moral center: a Goliath-against-David struggle over the truth.

How 287 people died in the air crash on Mt Erebus. What caused the crash and who covered it up

This is a pioneering work. Recent disasters such as the tsunami disaster continue to demonstrate Professor Allinson’s thesis that valuing human lives is the core of ethical management. His unique comparison of the ideas of the power of Fate and High Technology, his penetrating analysis of the very concept of an "accident", demonstrate how concepts rule our lives. His wide-ranging investigation of court cases and government documents from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, and from places as diverse as the USA, UK and New Zealand provide ample supporting evidence for the universality and the power of explanation of his thesis. Saving Human Lives will have an impact beyond measurement on the field of management ethics.

When an Air New Zealand sightseeing plane crashed into the lower slopes of Mount Erebus in Antarctica in 1979, all 257 people on board lost their lives. The Erebus disaster sent shockwaves through our small country - it is said that 'everyone knew someone' involved. What's more, the aftermath wreaked its own trail of destruction, with the Royal Commission of Inquiry coining the oft-quoted phrase 'an orchestrated litany of lies' to describe the airline management's conduct. The surrounding media storm drowned out the stories of those at the heart of the tragedy: the families who lost someone, and the people who worked so hard to bring loved ones home. Their stories were forgotten - until now. Marking the fortieth anniversary of that horrific event, this is the first book on the topic written by a family member. In Towards the Mountain, Sarah Myles uses extensive research and interviews to weave together the stories of her grandfather, his fellow adventurers and the first responders. This is the story of what happened and its enduring impact on those most affected. What emerges is a testament to the possibility of hope.

Uncertainty surrounds the use of publicity as a means of controlling corporate crime. On the one hand, some agree with Justice Brandeis's dictum that light is "the best of disinfectants...the most efficient policeman." On the other hand, many believe that corporations' internal affairs are effectively shrouded with a thick fog that prevents the light of public scrutiny from reaching them. The Impact of Publicity on Corporate Offenders is the first study to go beyond the rhetoric, through an examination of corporate experience. Fisse and Braithwaite have carried out a qualitative inquiry concerning 17 large corporations involved in publicity crises. Based mainly on interviews, the inquiry includes company employees and former employees, union officials, officers of government regulatory agencies, competitors, independent accountants, government prosecutors, public interest activists, judicial officers, stockbrokers, and other experts.

This book explores the human contribution to the reliability and resilience of complex, well-defended systems. Usually the human is considered a hazard - a system component whose unsafe acts are implicated in the majority of catastrophic breakdowns. However there is another perspective that has been relatively little studied in its own right - the human as hero, whose adaptations and compensations bring troubled systems back from the brink of disaster time and again. What, if anything, did these situations have in common? Can these human abilities be ’bottled’ and passed on to others? The Human Contribution is vital reading for all professionals in high-consequence environments and for managers of any complex system. The book draws its illustrative material from a wide variety of hazardous domains, with the emphasis on healthcare reflecting the author’s focus on patient safety over the last decade. All students of human factors - however seasoned - will also find it an invaluable and thought-provoking read.