Air New Zealand crash widow's heartbreak

Photo: Lawrence Smith

Remembrance day: Tracey Marsh and daughter Katie at Perpignan, where a plaque was unveiled yesterday.

Photo: Sam Shepherd

In Antarctica flowers were laid at the Erebus memorial.

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A heartbreaking message to a husband and father lost in the crash of an Air New Zealand Airbus in the Mediterranean last year was left on a French beach yesterday: "To my dearest husband... Noel. My soul mate. My best friend. My life's companion. The love of my life. The father of our children."

The words were written on a card by Tracey Marsh, the widow of Christchurch engineer Noel Marsh, one of seven men – five New Zealanders and two Germans – killed in the crash off the coast of Perpignan in the south of France a year ago yesterday.

Tracey Marsh, who was carrying her nine-month-old daughter Katie, born three months after the crash, was one of 20 relatives of the lost Kiwi airmen who travelled to Perpignan for a ceremony to remember the victims.

The commemoration was one of five in France, New Zealand and Antarctica that marked the first anniversary of the Perpignan crash, and the 30th anniversary of the Mt Erebus air disaster in Antarctica, in which 257 people were killed.

At a sombre ceremony at Le Canet-en-Roussillon in southern France yesterday, a greenstone-embedded rock engraved with the names of the seven victims of the Airbus crash was unveiled at the end of a stone breakwater. As well as the names of those who died, a simple statement in English, French and German read: "In memory of five New Zealanders and two Germans who tragically lost their lives while flying off the coast from Canet Plage on 27 December 2008. Forever in our hearts and in our memories."

"I know my brother would be very pleased to have his name carved in a rock that was looking out to sea," said Maggi Wride, the sister of Wellington Civil Aviation Authority engineer Jeremy Cook.

Wride said it was "very cathartic" to return to Le Canet-en-Roussillon, where families of the victims "had been welcomed with open arms".

"People have come up to us and have asked where we are from, and when we tell them, they want to kiss us."

Wride, a New Zealander living in London, said she had the pleasure of knowing that her brother's body had been found and laid to rest in New Zealand, but the ceremony was part of the process of moving on.

Wride said the presence of Tracey Marsh's daughter Katie was "proof that life goes on, which is so important to remember". Marsh also has two young sons, Leon and Ryan, aged three and five.

Jo Gyles, the widow of Christchurch engineer Michael Gyles, and their two teenage sons were also present, along with families of the two German pilots who died. Representatives from Air New Zealand, the German airline company XL Airways, French gendarmes and the coastguard also attended.

Air New Zealand's deputy chief executive Norm Thompson told the crowd the rock from the local town of Baixas, overlaid with a pounamu plaque from the West Coast of the South Island, was to commemorate the loss of "seven great men".

"It is a very special piece of stone for seven very special people."

He said although the families of Aucklanders Brian Horrell and Murray White were unable to be in France, they had touched the pounamu before it left New Zealand and were thereby infused forever in the stone.

After relatives placed bouquets and wreaths at the foot of the memorial, they were taken by boat to the precise spot where the Airbus plunged into the sea. At precisely 4.46pm, the time of the crash, the boat's siren sounded seven times.

Meanwhile, six relatives of Erebus victims – among them Pip Collins, daughter of the pilot Captain Jim Collins – attended commemorations at Antarctica's Scott Base for the 257 people on board a DC10 sightseeing flight from Auckland who died 30 years ago when Flight TE901 slammed into the foothills of Mt Erebus.

The group had taken a koru-shaped capsule containing messages from families and water from Aoraki-Mt Cook. Plans to lay the capsule at the crash site were thwarted by bad weather, but if the wind drops the group hope to visit the site before leaving on Monday.

At Air NZ's Auckland headquarters, the company's chief executive Rob Fyfe yesterday repeated his apology of last month to those Erebus families who had lost relatives but did not receive the support they should have from the company. "The airline made mistakes and undoubtedly let down people affected by the tragedy," he told the crowd of several hundred.

Earlier at a ceremony in the Erebus Memorial Gardens at Auckland Airport, families of the 20 crew who died at Erebus released 20 white balloons.