Around the time I was finishing up high school (and being parentally denied the scholarship I’d won myself alone, but let’s not get distracted right off the bat), there were a tiny handful of commercial tourist flights over Antarctica.

The big birds didn’t land on the seventh continent, but only overflew McMurdo Sound and its station, offering unprecedented views of spectacularly remote things, like the almost continuously erupting volcano of Mount Erebus, before returning to the civilized antipodes from whence they came after eleven hours non-stop.

The final flight crashed amidst a long and foul scandal, and that was that. Never again since, and not for a long time yet if ever, would anyone have that specific opportunity to gamble with wonder and death.

With all due respect to both the evil criminals and the innocent victims, it’s a pretty great story.

Litany of LIES | The Mount Erebus Disaster

Enjoy. If you want to.

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In Greek mythology, Erebus is the personification of darkness, or ‘gloom’.

Look how seasonally appropriate I’m being ennit.