Times Past - Wahine and Kingsford Smith ...

Today we thought we'd reflect on New Zealand historical events, both recent and not so ...

The Wahine Disaster

The sinking of the Lyttelton–Wellington ferry Wahine on 10 April 1968 was New Zealand’s worst modern maritime disaster. Fifty-one people lost their lives that day, another died several weeks later and a 53rd victim died in 1990 from injuries sustained in the wreck. The Wahine’s demise also marked a coming of age for television news broadcasting in New Zealand as images of the disaster were beamed into the nation’s living rooms. The footage was later screened around the world as the international media spotlight focused on Wellington.
 
Would-be rescuers stood helplessly on the beach at Seatoun as the Wahine succumbed to one of the worst storms recorded in New Zealand history. It seemed impossible that so many lives could be lost so close to shore. Although the main cause of the accident was the atrocious weather conditions, the subsequent inquest also acknowledged that errors of judgement had been made both on board the ferry and on shore. Shipwrecks were commonplace in the 19th century, but this was the 1960s – how could a large, modern vessel founder almost within sight of New Zealand’s capital city?
  
'The Wahine disaster', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/wahine-disaster, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 20-Dec-2012. Click on the image below for a video of the disaster ...

Kinsgford Smith conquers the Tasman
 
At 9.22 a.m. on 11 September, Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith landed at Wigram Aerodrome, Christchurch, in his three-engine Fokker plane, the Southern Cross, to complete the first successful trans-Tasman crossing. Leaving Sydney the previous evening, Kingsford Smith and his crew (two Australians and New Zealand radio operator T.H. McWilliams) had covered 2670 km in 14 hours 25 minutes. Some 30,000 people flocked to Wigram to greet them, and many thousands of others listened to a live radio commentary of the event.