A woman whose father died in the AIR NEW ZEALAND Mt Erebus disaster in 1979 has questioned the Airline's use of the words "whoop whoop," the last signal that the flight crew heard before the DC10 went down, in its advertising. An ANZ advertisement which appeared in the Weekend New Zealand Herald headed "Let's Party" promotes low airfares. It also uses the words "whoop whoop" at the bottom. The last recorded message from the ground proximity warning system to the Erebus flight crew contained a "whoop, whoop" warning sound, with the last word being: "Pull ..." The sound of the collision can then be heard and the black box recording ends. Jayne Holtham's father, Bryan, was on the DC10 that crashed 31 years ago, killing all 257 crew and passengers. She said the Airline's choice of words in its advertisement was insensitive. "It definitely tugs at the heartstrings. The second you say that, you remember the last few seconds of the flight." She said the timing was unfortunate, given the Airline was organizing a 2nd flight for the families of Erebus victims to visit the crash site in Antarctica. "It is pretty s*** marketing, obviously they're not even thinking about that," Holtham said. "Someone needs to say 'woops, bad marketing'." An Air NZ spokeswoman said the reference was to a party phrase and apologized if anyone took offence. In a written statement, she said the phrase "whoop whoop" was used by DJs at parties and Air NZ would be happy to discuss it further with the families of Erebus victims. Ian Hambley, whose job in 1979 was to talk to those families and return possessions that arrived from Antarctica, puts the mistake down to a young person in marketing who might not even know about the Erebus crash. "I recently went to the birthday party of an Air NZ manager and there were young Air NZ staff there who had never heard of Erebus."
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