Urs Locher was 29 years old. The son of a Swiss schoolfriend of my father’s Urs had arrived in NZ by boat in 1977. He brought with him his burgundy coloured left hand drive Opel Ascona, the latest European camping gear, and lots of photographic equipment in a silver case.
Urs lived at our place until he bought a small house for himself in Kelston, Auckland. Through my father he had taken up gliding and was building a glider with my father in our garage, so that prior to the time of the accident he was at our place many weekday evenings and most weekends.
Through my parents Urs got to know my second cousin Suzanne and her husband Heinz Burgi who had arrived in NZ from Switzerland in 1975, and he spent quite a bit of time with them.
---
Whilst the possibility of the flight had been mentioned to my father some time earlier, that it was being taken was to have been a surprise to us on Urs’return.
We had no TV. The night of 28 November 1979 we had no idea of what so many others already knew – that a plane was missing. It was a shock to answer a 2am phone call from Air New Zealand. For some reason Urs’s car was in the car park at Auckland International Airport - on a workday night - and would need to be retrieved.
This news only made sense after I handed the telephone to my father and he had been told a few times that Urs had taken a day flight to Antarctica and left us as the emergency contacts.
With the time difference it was still the 28th of November in Switzerland when my parents called to tell Urs’ parents. 28th November was also Urs’s mother’s birthday.
Around breakfast time in NZ my parents telephoned Suzanne and Heinz to break the news to them, only to find Suzanne distraught. Heinz and Urs had taken TE901 together.
------
While our family do not condone the apparent ‘cover-ups’ by Air New Zealand, we appreciate the current apology. The corporate Air NZ response at the time while not helpful in the grieving process, is somewhat understandable to us though in terms of legal culpability and the ramifications on compensation payments (which, it should be remembered, were made). Had things been handled differently at the time perhaps the airline might not have survived to become one that NZers have so much reason to be proud of today.
From news reports it would seem that for some of the victims’ families Air New Zealand’s response at the time of the accident was not a positive experience. However I am sure we are not the only ones who were well-supported at the time. We would like it to be publicly recognised that there was a human face to Air New Zealand at the time of the tragedy.
Immediately after the crash Air New Zealand assigned each of the victim’s families a contact person from their senior staff. Ours was then Cargo Manager Eric Smitton.
Through Eric Smitton my mother, who acted as translator and administrator of Urs’s estate, and Urs’ parents Ernst and Lini were supported through the process of body identification in the weeks immediately following the tragedy. Through Eric Smitton arrangements were made to fly Urs’s parents and two aunts to New Zealand. Air New Zealand paid for Urs’ parents flights and accommodation for the entire time they needed to be in NZ, which was over 2 months, as Urs’ body was only identified a couple of days before Christmas.
Eric Smitton’s support did not end with a bouquet of flowers, though. He and his wife Margaret attended Urs’ funeral and opened their home to us many times that summer, as they continued to do each time of the many times Urs’s parents travelled to New Zealand.
In the 30 years since the accident Eric and Margaret and their sons have stayed in contact with my parents and Urs’s parents, and have even visited Ernst and Lini in Zurich.
For us the face of Air New Zealand was real, and caring – thanks to Eric and Margaret.
------
Urs’s parents are now 89 and 96. They are no longer able to make their bi-annual 3-month pilgrimmage to the country their only son had made home at the time of his death.
They live in the same apartment they lived in a the time of the crash, and Urs’ room remains much as it did in1979.
Four years after the accident I sat my driver’s licence in the burgundy Opel Ascona.
We used his tent for years until the canvas deteriorated, but I still have his camping cooker.
I have wondered many times over the years whether the silver case, and any of his photographic equipment were recovered from the accident site; whether any of the rolls of film survived the crash, whether they might be able to be identified as his, and whether there might be other photos taken by others on the flight that included Heinz and Urs in them.
Vivienne Bryner