Join us for the sad tale of Air New Zealand's flight 901 that crashed in Antarctica in 1979. But first we need a little bit of context and we revisit several Doomed to Fail Episodes: The Franklin Expedition Ep 58 Volcanoes - between 38 and 71 Antarctica - Ep 158 Mt. Everest - Ep 95 Then we get to the story of the trip, which sounds amazing until it isn't.
Join us for the sad tale of Air New Zealand's flight 901 that crashed in Antarctica in 1979. But first we need a little bit of context and we revisit several Doomed to Fail Episodes:
The Franklin Expedition Ep 58
Volcanoes - between 38 and 71
Antarctica - Ep 158
Mt. Everest - Ep 95
Then we get to the story of the trip, which sounds amazing until it isn't.
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: I got the kids to watch Easter Parade. It was their first time
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Farz: What your country can do for you.
>> Taylor: Ask what you can do for your country.
>> Farz: Boom. And we're recording. Taylor, happy spring to you. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good. I got the kids to watch Easter Parade. It was their first time. Florence really liked it. It's one of my favorite movies.
>> Farz: So I don't know that movie.
>> Taylor: It's Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. It's lovely.
>> Farz: It's a classic.
>> Taylor: 11 out of 10 recommend. So that's great.
>> Farz: Very cool. So, yeah, we can go ahead and hop right in. That was a bunny reference. Thank you.
>> Taylor: That was lovely. That was really great. That's a really great Easter. Thank you. Yeah.
Fars: It is very springy here. I can, like, hear birds outside
Hi. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you history's most notorious disasters and failures twice a week. I am Taylor, joined by Varsity.
>> Farz: Yes, I'm here. I'm here all the time. This is me Fars.
>> Taylor: It is very springy. I can, like, hear birds outside. I do. I see bunnies at my window, like several times a day. It's like a bunny hopping by.
>> Farz: I wish it was spring all the time. I don't know what the utility of the rest of the summer seasons are.
>> Taylor: I agree. It's definitely nice. I like, I liked on a crisp autumn, but like spring and it also goes by so fast. Like, it was just my husband's birthday last week. And I remember when we lived in New York, his birthday was always freezing. And I always be like, it's mid April. It has to be nice. And it would never be nice. Yeah. You know, but it's really nice here we have some cactuses that bloom for like a day and then the, you know, then like the blooms that close up and become part of the cactus and they're like bright pink. It's really pretty.
>> Farz: Are those prickly pears?
>> Taylor: They're similar. I'm sure they're probably related in some way.
>> Farz: Okay. Fun. We're both blessed to live in very cacti friendly environments, so.
>> Taylor: We are.
>> Farz: Thank goodness for that. Sweet. Taylor.
A moose bouche is something that you eat between meals to cleanse palate
Well, let's dive in. I think you're gonna start us off today.
>> Taylor: I am. I have a one that ties a lot of the stuff we've been talking about over our million episodes together. So I'm gonna reference four of our episodes and tell you about a plane crash every.
>> Farz: Everything in one.
>> Taylor: Yes, it is a. A it's. Yes, it's a moose bouche. That's not the right Word. What's it called? Like a tasting menu is a moosh bouche. A real disaster. Yeah. And a moose bouche is something that you eat between meals at a really fancy restaurant to cleanse your palate. So it's not a moose bush at all. You know, usually, like, it comes in, like, a little plate, and then, like, you eat it and it's like, oh, my palate is cleansed.
>> Farz: Like the ginger for sushi.
>> Taylor: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed on November 29, 1979
So I'm going to talk about Air New Zealand flight 901. Does that ring any bells?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: Okay, good. So I wrote, not to be outdone in plane crashes, let's talk about. Oh, also, because I just bought myself tickets to go to Atlanta. So I'm psyching myself up. Cause I have to go to Atlanta for two days for work soon. Yeah. So. All right. Like, for it. So Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed on November 29, 1979.
Episode 158 talks about Antarctica and how isolated it is
But first, we have to talk about four things we've talked about before. The Franklin expedition, which is episode 58. That is when they get lost in the Arctic volcanoes, which are seven episodes in between episodes 38 and 71. They're in there. Antarctica, episode 158, you talked about how. How isolated Antarctica is and people who do their own surgery there because they can't get any help. And Mount Everest, which you talked about in episode 95.
>> Farz: Fun.
>> Taylor: So all of that ties into this plane crash. So let's go back to 1845, and you'll remember the Franklin expedition.
>> Farz: Yep.
>> Taylor: They set out from England to find that Northwest Passage. The two ships that are on that are. Yeah. The Terror and the Erebus. Correct. Both those names are terrifying. And that's kind of what we're going to talk about. So they had tried to do this before, and they'd gotten stuck on the ice for 10 months, came back, went and did it again. This time, they did not make it. Everybody either starved or, you know, died of sickness. There was scurvy. They froze to death. There's evidence that they decided to, like, leave and start walking away carrying a lot of their things that they had. But there was, like, lead leaking through their cans, and they were getting sick from blood poisoning. Everybody's kind of going crazy, obviously, as you would. I don't know how you could not go crazy.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: And there's some, like, mummified bodies of sailors that we've seen that from, from the expedition. But most of them are just gone. Eventually. In 2014 and 2016, the two ships Were found. Like their wreckage was found, but they were found 45 miles apart. So at some point, like, they were together in the ice, and at some point the ice melted enough for them to separate and then they sank, which by that time everybody was dead.
>> Farz: Which is probably related to continental drift, which is part of the volcano episodes.
>> Taylor: Yeah, well, yeah. Comes in a second. So all that to say the Terror was named because it was supposed to incite fear, which makes sense. It was used in the. The War of 1812. It was used. I think it was at the. In. The Terror is a ship that was in the bay in Baltimore when the guy wrote the Star Spangled Banner. Like, that ship has been everywhere. And the Erebus is the. It's sister ship and it was named after a Greek deity that represents darkness born from chaos. So, like, don't name your boat that.
>> Farz: I would. That's so cool.
>> Taylor: It's very dark and I feel like I. Oh, actually, okay, so remember playing.
>> Farz: Pantera on that thing?
>> Taylor: That's fair. That's true. Like in Mad Max where the guy's like, playing the guitar on, like, that thing.
>> Farz: Yes, yes, exactly.
>> Taylor: That makes sense. Instead of the Mermaid, they have that guy just like, strapped to the front of the. Of the Airbus. So the Airbus is part of that fleet. It gets lost and everyone dies. Four years before that, in 1841, the same ship, the Erebus, was captained by a man named James Clark Ross. So different captains, same two boats together, but this time they're in Antarctica. So they're at the South Pole of. Of the Earth and they discover in Antarctica two volcanoes. They name the volcanoes the Erebus and the Terror after themselves. The Erebus is an active. Was actively erupting when he named it that. And that actually kind of does make sense.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. That name actually is very fitting.
>> Taylor: That is something to name an active volcano. Absolutely. And it is. So it's the same ship that named this volcano Antarctica that ends up, you know, at the bottom of the ocean in. In the Arctic, on the other side of the world, which is pretty crazy. So the. So now Mount Eris is in Antarctica. It's kind of on the. Near the coast. It's obviously been there for, you know, a long time. It is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. It is the second highest volcano in Antarctica. The other one is dormant and it is a polygenetic stratovolcano. So. So which means it has ice caves and active lava. So it's like a pretty intense mountain.
>> Farz: They should make a movie in there.
>> Taylor: I know it sounds wild. I was actually thinking of, like, Lenny Briefenstahl in a cave on a mountain making a movie. Because you're like, there are active ice cliffs here.
You cover Antarctica in your latest episode. It's the coldest place on Earth
>> Farz: I was actually thinking about another episode that I. We. Well, there was one that I covered where Superman's father, played by Martin Blander, they should have done in that cave with the suitcase. With the suitcase, yes.
>> Taylor: So it was first. The. The island around the volcano was first mapped in 1912. It is close to Ross island, which obviously the Captain Ross named after himself, and other Antarctic stations from, like, different countries around here. And I think we talked about this in your Antarctica episode, but, like, it's a terrible place to be. It's the coldest place on Earth. It's also a desert, so there's, like, no vegetation, there's no animals. Sometimes it's, you know, light all the time. Sometimes it's dark all the time. It's just, like, not a good place to be. You're there for, like, scientific exploration for, like, six months, then you leave and you have to come back later. It's like space.
>> Farz: Yeah. They also. The thing I cover was catabolic winds, which are like these insanely powerful winds that prevent any. Anybody from actually getting to you once you're there.
>> Taylor: Yes. Scary. So it's scary. So that's what we have. So now. Now we have an active volcano in Antarctica named the Erebus, named after the boat that we knew about from the other thing, which is an interesting connection.
>> Farz: Yeah.
You talked about people who died climbing Mount Everest and some bodies
>> Taylor: Okay, now let's talk about Mount Everest. So you talked about people who died climbing Mount Everest and, like, some bodies.
>> Farz: Well, yeah, I think. I think I covered. I mean, this. We've done a lot of this. So going back, and there's. So I think it was all the different corpses that are visible.
>> Taylor: Yes, yes. So you mentioned in that episode that some people like George Mallory and Andrew Irvine tried to get to the top before, and I think one of them, their bodies had something that, like, they didn't have a letter that they were going to leave at the top, which makes you think that they did actually make it.
>> Farz: Yep.
>> Taylor: Is that right?
>> Farz: Yep.
>> Taylor: So. So, you know, we think other people may have done it before, but the first person to actually do it that came back is Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay, who was his Sherpa guide from Nepal. So Sir Edmund Hillary, we talked about a little bit in your episode, he was from New Zealand, which was part of the uk. Just a little bit of stuff on New Zealand that I didn't like super fast New zealand information. In 1840 it was a British colony. In 1907 it had its own dominion so it could self govern, but the British Empire was still head of state. And then in 1947 there was a Statute of Westminster. Westminster which gave New Zealand full legislative independence from Britain. It could make its own laws. And then in 1986 was a constitution act where it has its own constitutional independence. But that means the Queen is also, instead of them kind of like reporting to the Queen of England, they just changed her title to Queen of New Zealand when she's there, essentially. So she's. So King Charles is King of England plus 14 other things including New Zealand.
>> Farz: I mean it sounds like a lot, but I, I assume it's just all ceremonial.
>> Taylor: Yeah, so that's what, that's just what New Zealand's up to anyway. Edmund Hillary was born on July 20, 1919. He was 6ft 6 inches tall and he looks like it. He looks huge, very skinny. He was a beekeeper and an avid like mountain climber. And then he joined the war in World War II in the Pacific theater. But religiously he was a pacifist and he didn't want to join, but he ended up joining after he felt like he had to. In 1953 he climbed Mount Everest and it was the Queen's coronation day. Do you remember that? How exciting that was?
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, totally. I remember that all the time. I think about it constantly.
>> Taylor: I think you talked about it. I thought that's why I mentioned it.
>> Farz: I probably saw it somewhere in Pascal.
>> Taylor: Anyway, that was exciting for the empire that he had done that. And he was like from there. And he was knighted shortly after, which is why he's Sir Edmund Hillary. So he kept climbing after this. He also did a lot of humanitarian work. He helped build schools and bridges and hospitals in Nepal. Airstrips to make it a little bit safer to fly in and out of Nepal. He wanted to help the Sherpas who had helped him. He.
>> Farz: Have you seen pictures of the airstri he helped build?
>> Taylor: I think so. They're really insane, right?
>> Farz: It is. It's so much worse than just dying. I would just tell the pilot to fly the thing straight into the f****** side of the mountain because it is.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I know we talked about this.
>> Farz: Trying to land on that thing, it's.
>> Taylor: Like, like part of the most dangerous part of doing that is that.
>> Farz: Yes. Yeah, well, God bless him for having done it. Like, I mean he did something, but still it is a horribly terrifying experience.
>> Taylor: Exactly. So he does a Lot of humanitarian work and he also does stuff in Antarctica. So he led the New Zealand section of the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition in 1957. So he's one of the first people to reach the South Pole by car. He drove there. He was the first person to stand at both the north and South Poles and the top of Mount Everest. And I can't feel like that can't be a long list.
>> Farz: Yeah, Very, very accomplished. Clearly.
>> Taylor: Yeah. And so in 1975, so he had, he was married to a woman named Louise and they had three children. And then 1975, when his wife and his daughter Belinda were visiting him in Nepal, their plane did crash shortly after takeoff in Nepal and they both died. So he was left with his two boys, who I think is a girl and a boy. And they're still alive, his kids are still alive today. But he was obviously super devastated about this and like spent some time alone and then went back to his like humanitarian work after his wife had had passed. So it's the 1970s and now we know that. So we know that Sir Edmund Hillary is doing stuff in New Zealand and Antarctica and all of that. He's getting older. He exists.
In 1979, Air New Zealand flew to Antarctica with Sir Edmund Hillary
So now I'm going to start the story of this actual of New Zealand and New Zealand flight 901 knowing all stuff that we know.
>> Farz: Sweet. Those are h*** of a setup.
>> Taylor: Yep. So in 1979 and before this there was a trip you could take with Air New Zealand. That honestly sounds awesome. So it's a sightseeing flight. You leave Auckland and you go to Antarctica. You go down by Ross island, which was named by our captain Ross, and you stop and refuel and then you fly around the part of the Antarctic. It is a 10 to 12 hour flight and on the flight it's open bar, there's lots of meals, they play movies that are related to exploration. And it's at about 15% under capacity, so there's space to walk around and look around. So maybe like you and your friend share a three person row. There's never a third person. You just walk around, eat, drink, have a great time, look at the snow at the window. But you're warm and cozy inside this plane and it has an expert that tells you who what you're looking at. And guess who that expert was for a lot of the flights.
>> Farz: Tenzing Norgay.
>> Taylor: No, it was Sir Edmund Hillary.
>> Farz: Right, right. I don't know why I said, sorry.
>> Taylor: Could have been Tensing could have done it too. But Sir Edmund Hillary would be on there, which would be how cool would that be to be on a plane, looking at that Arctic and having Edmund Hillary tell you about it?
>> Farz: This does sound incredible.
>> Taylor: I think it sounds really fun. But on this day, November 29, 1979, Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't make it. He had other obligations.
>> Farz: Wait, so was really him? It wasn't like, an audio recording or.
>> Taylor: No, he was really him as a human. He was there, and he would, like, tell you what was going on.
>> Farz: That's so great. That is. That is 10 times cooler than what I thought it was.
>> Taylor: Yeah, no, he was, like, literally there. You could, like, ask him questions, and he would show you. He, like, knew what you were flying over, and he would talk about all of his adventures, and, I mean, wow. Awesome. so he couldn't make it that day, so he asked his friend Peter Mulgrew to do it instead. So. Peter was born on November 21, 1927, in New Zealand. He was in the Royal New Zealand Navy for 11 years, including being active in the Korean War. He joined a Himalayan expedition in 1960, where he suffered severe frostbite and lost both of his feet. But he kept climbing, and he kept doing adventurous stuff, and he climbed the Matterhorn. Later, he was a sailor. He sailed around cape horn in 1973. So he's very qualified and, like, very brave, obviously, because he does. He, like, has feet amputated. Peter's married to a woman named June, and they have two children. So he says. Oh. He also was on boards with. With Sir Edmund Hillary. They worked together for, like, the humanitarian stuff as well, so they're really good friends. And he says, okay, I got this. Like, he's like, it's only been. It's been, like, four years since Sir Edmund Hillary's wife and daughter died. So I feel like it just hasn't been that long since that. And he's like, I'll go and I'll do this trip for you. So Peter Mulgrew is the. Is the expert on this flight. And because it's November, the end of November, a lot of the people who are on the flight are there because it's their Christmas gift from their family. Like, we saved up money for you to go on this trip. A lot of, like, older couples, the pilots are there. The pilots had never done this flight before, but they were very qualified pilots. The captain was Jim Collins. He was 45. The first officer, Greg Casson, was in his 30s. There were two flight engineers. There was a first officer. So there were a lot of people on the flight that could very successfully fly an airplane that day. There were 257 people on board, 237 passengers and 20 crew members. So a lot of people. It was also a McDonnell Douglas DC 10. And you'll remember that things don't go great with those a couple times.
>> Farz: That's, that's a Tristar, right?
>> Taylor: I'm not sure I know that. It's the one where, I can't remember we talked about it, but where like the cargo door didn't close all the way in some cases. And that caused crashes.
>> Farz: Yeah, I can see how that would work. I think it is, I think it's the one that has the three things.
>> Taylor: Oh yeah, maybe. So the flight boards at 8:30am and the first four hours are fine. Around noon there was regular communication and around 12:49 communication ceased and they never heard from the plane again.
There is actual video from onboard the plane of the crash itself
So here's the part that is so crazy that I want, I will have. Don't look it up now, but look it up later. I don't know if you've been googling this while I've been talking. No, but there is actual video from onboard the plane of the crash itself. It is about a minute long. It was found in the wreckage. So it's also helped verify the video because people recognized their family members on the video. So it's a minute, it's very clearly on like a 70s style like recorder that you're holding and there are people walking around with cocktails and talking to each other and laughing and looking out the window and taking pictures and eating and you can see what it would be like to like be on the sightseeing plane. They're walking around and looking at it and then the camera turns and looks out the window and you're looking, you can see the outline of the window and you're looking at like the snow and ice and then all of a sudden you just see orange engulf the window and then it's over. So was like the actual plane crash a moment?
>> Farz: Geez. Well, so was the. It was, I guess the thing blew up or.
>> Taylor: I'll tell you what happened. Okay, so it happened very, very fast because you can see like someone's like out the window, you know, taking this thing and then all of a sudden orange. So by 9pm New Zealand was finally like, it's lost like the, like we need to send out a search party. At midnight. A U.S. team that was joining the search saw the wreckage around Mount Ere and I was like, how could they have seen that? But it was always Daytime at this time of the year. So that's how they were able to do search at midnight. So what ended up they ended up doing is sending people, like you said, to like go out and camp and like find the wreckage and go through, go through it and find and identify the bodies and do all of that. But that was also really, really hard because of the wind, because of like the weather there. It was freezing. And so they did their best. But the wreckage of the flight is actually still there in Antarctica. And here's what happened. So the night before the flight, the coordinates of the path were changed slightly by 2 degrees longitude in that the crew was not informed. And then 14 months before this, the flight path had been digitized, and when it was digitized, there was another change in, like, the latitude was changed from164 to166 in one place. So I'm not like a map person, but that little change was kind of annoying. And another pilot had complained and reported it, but they didn't do anything about it. So, like, that little change kind of made the path, like a little bit harder to navigate, but they were like, don't worry about it, no big deal. But then that change, combined with the 2 degree change that they had made the night before, not told them about, put them on a wildly different path. So the pilots thought, and they were flying down the McMurdo Sound, which is a clear path over, like, over the snow and ice, where you can go and like do this sightseeing trip. And they descended about 2,000ft to get a better look for the passengers, which they had never done before because they had never flown this route. But like, all the flights that they had done in the past, they had done that like it was not new. The pilots would lower the flights that you could, you could see, you could see better. But what they didn't know is they were not at all where they thought they were. They were actually headed straight towards Mount Erebus. And they couldn't see it because it was in total whiteout. So it was like white sky, white ground, white mountain. They couldn't see it and they thought.
>> Farz: They were the mountain.
>> Taylor: They flew into the, into the mountain and exploded. They flew into the side of the mountain, just like the one you talked about last week.
>> Farz: Wow.
>> Taylor: And they, it would have been a total surprise because they didn't. They literally just did not see it. Like, they couldn't see. You couldn't tell where the horizon was. You couldn't tell where anything was because it was just totally white. So it's called sector whiteout, which makes it, like, impossible to tell where the train is and where it isn't. Everyone died, obviously, like, you know, everyone on the plane died. Air New Zealand blamed the pilots immediately. They said it's their fault. They're the ones who, who did this. And the pilots, families and people were like, they wouldn't. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, they're very accomplished pilots. They were following the flight path. They ended up getting, you know, finally getting, like, the data back. And they. They did it at like one. A couple seconds before the crash. They would get. They got a warning and it was like, at 12:49, they got a warning that was like, pull up, pull up, pull up. And the flight engineer said, we're at 500ft. And they're like, pull up, pull up. And then that was it. So it was like half a second warning that they ended up getting from their. From their equipment anyway. So they didn't know that they were. They're flying into it. They. The. They basically. They did fly low. Basically they thought they were somewhere else. So finally there was an inquest in 1980, and Judge Peter Mahone in New Zealand blamed Air New Zealand for it. And the government, he said the investigation was. He said litany twice. There was a litany of administrative blunders and an orchestrated litany of lies. People were just trying to, like, cover it up and cover it up and blame the pilots. But it wasn't the pilot's fault. The DC10 plane is the same plane that crashed in Chicago and then like in Turkey as well. So it's like a plane that, like, was not. I think it might have been the Tenerife plane as well. Might have been a DC10.
>> Farz: Could have been. I know that one of them was a 747, the one that actually started the whole problem was a KLM 747 because he took off without ground clearance.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But finally, in 30 years later, new Zealand, they apologized for the disaster, saying that they, you know, that they should have done like a better. A better job of taking care of it afterwards of all those things that was. He. He apologized, everyone affected. And then the.
Sir Edmund Hillary married Peter Mulgrew's widow in 1989
The. The same Judge Mahone, he awarded a memorial medal to the pilots just like, for their. Like, it wasn't their fault. They did all of those things. And then the. Like I said, the wreckage is still there. They left. Left all of it there because, like, like the one in the. Andy's like, you just can't go and get It, Like, a lot of it is still there. Some of the bodies were never identified. Some of them. Some of them were. And then many years later. How many years later? So I think 10 years later. Yes. In 1989, Sir Edmund Hillary married Peter Mulgrew's widow, June, and they spent the rest of their lives together.
>> Farz: Kind of makes sense.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: She definitely has a type.
>> Taylor: I know. And they. They continue to do humanitarian work around. Around Nepal and to help the people who live in, like, those. Those towns at the bottom of those. Of those big mountains. And they were together until they both passed away. June passed away last year in 2024.
>> Farz: No way. Isn't it crazy how recent all this stuff was? Yeah, like, we just discovered and I guess. When did he do it? Like 1950s, when he summited Everest.
>> Taylor: I don't know. I think I remember when I. When we talked about this before, like, I always picture that happening, like, 100 years before that.
>> Farz: I know. When you said 1919, when he was born, I was like. I think you mean like 1719.
>> Taylor: No, I know it feels. He feels much like a much older thing, but no, he's like, pretty new. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
>> Farz: That is pretty crazy. Yeah. That is a. You know what? It's a shame because that flight does sound really, really cool, doesn't it?
>> Taylor: I think it sounds super cool. Okay. Did you find the video?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: We send it to you. It's like, oh, commercial. It is. Only it's less than a minute. Obviously, I'll put it in in our show notes for everyone. But it looks really pretty. You can see that. I'll narrate it. They're looking at the ocean. They're taking. They're drinking cocktails. Everyone's got cool sunglasses on. Grandpa. There's this lady at a school.
>> Farz: She looks so cool.
>> Taylor: I know. I got these cool cameras and then they look. Oh, look, it's so pretty. I can see these mountains. Looks pretty mountains. I can see the wing of the plane. Oh, orange. That was at 4950.
>> Farz: That is freaky. Well, the one good thing I would say is if you're gonna go, you know, like, at least you did something that was really fun, really cool. And it was the lasting member and it was immediate.
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly.
>> Farz: So, wow. Way to. Way to dovetail a bunch of different stuff into one.
>> Taylor: I know. Isn't that fun? I think we learned a bunch of cool stuff. And I could have not known, like, the. Where the word airbus came from, but now we know.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah.
From what I've read about Edmund Hillary, he seems very nice
Well, I bet Edmund Hillary was like, man, thank God I didn't take that one.
>> Taylor: I bet he felt terrible. Oh, my God.
>> Farz: I know, I know. Actually, everything I've read about him, he sounds like he's actually a really good person. And he probably did.
>> Taylor: He does. He seems really nice. Like, I was reading his Wikipedia page and just saying after he climbed Mount Everest, he looked like a. Like a. Like a happy walking skeleton. Because he was just, like, so tall, but, like, skinny from all of the working out and, like, climbing the mountain and just like. Like he was having fun. Yeah, he seems. He seems very nice.
>> Farz: Very, very fun.
Taylor: I wanted to do Antarctica to Auckland. That sounds kind of fun
Thanks for sharing. Yet another disaster, which I never knew happened for some reason. The fact that it was a. Just a fun little tourism thing makes it seem even scarier. I don't know why.
>> Taylor: I don't know. I feel like I. But I also feel like I. Well, a couple things I never thought about being on a plane to sightsee. That sounds kind of fun.
>> Farz: Yeah. I mean, I would totally do that.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: You do. What? I mean, there's times when I get my car and just drive because I'm like, I don't know, I just want to drive. I just want to, like, drive around and see what's going on in this neighborhood or whatever. So, like, why would you have the plane if you have one?
>> Taylor: Yeah. So I also feel like I don't really understand what where Antarctica is. I wanted to do Antarctica to Auckland. If I look. I want to look at them on a map.
>> Farz: Yeah. When you said that, I was like, I don't know my geography well enough to understand this.
>> Taylor: Okay, I see Auckland. Switch these Auckland then. I wanted to do. Not nervous. Well, I don't want directions. Google Maps. When I see how to ride my bike, I just want to see how far away it is. Oh, yeah. So it's like. It's like very, very close. It's like, you don't go over Antarctica. You're kind of like right where you first get there, you know?
>> Farz: Right. Yeah. Because why would you want to go over it?
>> Taylor: Right. You can't really. Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. The land mass is huge. And I'm looking at this on a map.
>> Taylor: It's.
>> Farz: It's like at least half the size of South America.
>> Taylor: I know. Look how big. Wait, okay, I'm asking so many stupid questions. What is the land of Antarctica size? 5.275 million square miles. The world's southern world's highest, driest, windiest, coldest, and iciest continent. Continent? Yeah. Oh, I guess it says the United States could fit on It. It says.
>> Farz: It would fit in it, right?
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, actually, it's like United States and Australia almost. In Europe. Almost all fit exactly inside of it.
>> Farz: Okay, well, that's still huge.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's huge.
>> Farz: Yeah. So imagine all the stuff that we haven't discovered in Antarctica because we can't get in the middle of it.
>> Taylor: I know. I was talking to my nail lady. What we were talking about, I forgot to talk about. She was like, you know what I hate? Whenever on the news, they're like, oh, I got this, like, parasite that I drilled out of a hole in the Arctic. And she's like, put that back. I'm like, you're totally right.
>> Farz: I need to watch. What was the name of it? The Body Sent the Body center movie. What was that? They found the dead thing in Antarctica. They thought it and then, like, everybody was infected.
>> Taylor: So many. It happens so many times.
>> Farz: Sweet. Well, thank you for sharing, Taylor. Very, very fun.
>> Taylor: You're welcome.
Do you have any fun listener mail to read us off with? I have a good amount of suggestions
>> Farz: Do you have any fun listener mail to read us off with?
>> Taylor: I have a good amount of suggestions that have been coming in. I got one from Morgan. I got a couple from Cara. I got one from Lindsay. I got an email from Justin. So thank you, everyone.
>> Farz: Yeah. Please keep writing in. Write to us@dpgmail.com and find us on the socials@d. Pod.
>> Taylor: Yeah, Patreon. Every social place. And yeah, that's where we. That's where we'll be.
>> Farz: Sweet. May the.
>> Taylor: Thank you.
>> Farz: Go ahead and sign off.