Witness to Mt Erebus ‘litany of lies’

Gpolice officer b July 10, 1946 d November 26, 2021

reg Gilpin, who has died aged 75, was a police officer who became an eyewitness to the ‘‘orchestrated litany of lies’’ after the Mt Erebus crash.

On November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight TE901 slammed into the side of the Antarctic volcano, killing 257 passengers and crew. Gilpin, who was then a sergeant, led body recovery teams one and two, which found Captain Jim Collins’ logbook.

Part of the logbook, which could have exonerated Collins, subsequently went missing under circumstances that remain unexplained. In November 2011, when he retired, Gilpin expressed regret that he had not held on to the book.

Among the many tributes at his retirement was one from then-Air New Zealand boss Rob Fyfe.

‘‘I wanted to pass on my very best wishes for your future,’’ Fyfe said. ‘‘You have carried a heavy burden as a result of your association with Erebus, but have always acted with integrity, professionalism and compassion throughout the subsequent years.’’

The pilot’s widow, Maria Collins, also paid tribute to Gilpin: ‘‘Thank God for a professionally committed policeman.’’

Gregory James Gilpin will always be remembered for the difficult job he had in retrieving bodies from the Antarctic, but it was not his only link to history.

Originally from Christchurch, he joined the police aged 18 and was initially based in the Wellington Central Station. When he retired 46 years later, he held the rank of inspector and had met US President Lyndon Johnson, prime ministers Robert Muldoon and Keith Holyoake, as well as King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Hillary Clinton. He was the Queen’s bodyguard for her 1970 tour.

His early days as a beat cop in Wellington were spent policing 6pm closing and dealing with drunks, who often wanted to fight. Inevitably in such a long career, he had to do more than deal with drunks.

During a callout to Karori, an offender held a gas-powered pistol to his head. The offender eventually escaped and would later go on to fatally stab someone. In an era before counselling, Gilpin was comforted by chief inspector Roger

Cotterrell, who was out walking his dog.

‘‘He took us to his nearby home in Karori and gave us a shot of whisky to calm the nerves,’’ Gilpin said.

He was twice threatened with a knife in the 1970s and, when he retired, noted that the job had become more dangerous.

Erebuswas not the only tragedy he was involved with. At noon on April 10, 1968, he was sent to Seatoun, where he helped Wahine survivors as they came ashore in the ferry’s lifeboats. Running into the sea to help, he was knocked over by one of the lifeboats.

In February 1986, history repeated when the Russian cruise liner Mikhail Lermontov sank in the Marlborough Sounds. He was involved in helping the 700, mostly elderly, Russian survivors at Wellington’s Overseas Passenger Terminal.

He was Wellington area commander for four years and spent 15 years as the city’s emergency responsemanager. Over the years he policed hundreds of demonstrations – including those against the Vietnam War, the 1981 Springbok tour and Bastion Point. One that always stuck in his mind was the ‘‘Battle of Molesworth St’’ during the 1981 tour.

‘‘Muldoon was determined the tour would continue and gave the police the resources they needed,’’ he said years later. ‘‘The tour was not a good thing for the country. It did a lot of harm. Many police officers did not agree with it. But we had a job to do and that was it.’’

He was a longtime member of the police Disaster Victim Identification Squad. A sergeant with 14 years’ experience in 1979, he joined a team of 11, under the command of Inspector Robert Mitchell, tasked with identifying the victims of the Erebus crash.

‘‘I said an emotional farewell to my wife and three young children and, because of the type of job we were heading to, and the location, genuinely wondered whether I would see them again.’’

Knowing the relatives of the dead would want a speedy recovery of the bodies, he flew south with a determination to do his best.

Surviving storms and whiteout conditions, spiritswere high and the team worked tirelessly. Gilpin’s account of the operation makes for harrowing ready.

‘‘Numerous bodies were visible scattered amongst the wreckage spread over the crash site. Nothing could really prepare anyone for such a large-scale scene of devastation and death.’’

The officers received no counselling and, for many years, no recognition for what they had done. Gilpin’s recognition did not come until 2005, when he received a New Zealand Special ServiceMedal. He was awarded the Erebus Medal in 2007.

The logbook incident always troubled him, he said, and would haunt him until he died.

His colleague, Constable Stuart Leighton, found the book in the wreckage. It was intact and contained numerous pages of legible writing, which Gilpin believes related to the flying of the aircraft. Both officers immediately knew its significance as potential evidence.

Gilpin double-bagged it and sealed it, but was dismayed to find out that, when it was presented at the later royal commission, some pages were missing.

When he returned to New Zealand after the recovery operation, Gilpin was soon back at work, but the impact of seeing the crash site would be lifelong. ‘‘Even today, I think about it every day,’’ he said in 2012.

A series of reports and legal challenges tried to deal with the issue ofwhether Air New Zealand management or the pilots were to blame for the disaster.

The royal commission, led by Justice Peter Mahon, found management had altered the flight path without telling the crew, and then tried to cover this up with ‘‘an orchestrated litany of lies’’. The Court of Appeal later found Mahon did not have the authority to make that statement.

In a 2012 article in Gilpin said he had been shocked to learn pages of the logbookwere missing. He had been watching a television documentary and was surprised to see Mahon holding the ringbinder and asking awitness: ‘‘Where do you suppose the pages are?’’

After meeting with some reluctance from his bosses, he subsequently met Mahon, who reportedly told him the missing pageswere the ‘‘incorrect’’ flight coordinates given to Collins byAir NZ.

Close friend and former colleague Ike Houghton met Gilpin in the mid-1980s when both men served in the Wellington team policing unit, dealing with highly visible gangs such as Black Power, the Mongrel Mob and Highway 61.

The unit would regularly get called to bars in the Hutt Valley and Porirua to deal with fights involving gang members. Houghton says Gilpin, who was known to his colleagues as The Chief, was a highly skilled officer who knew how to handle such situations.

‘‘His leadership was born out of respect. Every guy in that squad would have walked thorough hell to follow him.’’

Gilpin took Houghton under his wing and proved a good mentor. ‘‘I cannot explain enough how highly regarded he was in the police.’’

One aspect of the job he did not talk about was Erebus, and it was not until Gilpin retired that his good mate even knew he was involved.

When he was not talking about policing, Houghton says Gilpin had two great loves – rugby, particularly the Wellington Lions, and Neil Diamond.

Colleague and former assistant commissioner Nick Perry said Gilpin was an old-fashioned policeman, who was protective of his staff but always very fair to everyone he dealt with.

He enjoyed being on the beat and always had the support of his staff. ‘‘They loved the guy, they really did.’’

Gilpin married Vivienne (nee Hall) in 1970 and had three children: Jo, Sam and Gina. When he retired to his Horowhenua farm with Vivienne, he had been an officer for 46 years, four months and two weeks – making him the longest-serving officer in New Zealand.

Daughter Jo says her father was strict, but the three children had a happy upbringing. ‘‘He was a very loving dad, very supportive and very proud of everythingwe did.’’

In later life he suffered from a lung disease but remained passionate about seeing the Erebus memorial in Auckland built, and was disappointed that some people opposed it.

As his health deteriorated, he was prescribed a medication that was not funded by Pharmac. Former colleagues, including Houghton, banded together to raise the funds for it.

Gilpin’s younger brother was Steve Gilpin, winner of the New Faces talent show in 1972, who subsequently founded Mi-Sex and co-wrote their song

Hewas seriously injured in a car crash in Australia in 1991, and died in 1992. –