Peter Thomas Mahon was a New Zealand High Court judge. He led a Commission of Inquiry into the 1979 crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901 into Mount Erebus. His assessment of the airline's witnesses having engaged in "an orchestrated litany of lies" is one of the most well-known quotes in New Zealand, brought him offline with the establishment and made him a national hero.

Sam Mahon is an artist and author living in Waikari in North Canterbury in the South Island of New Zealand. He is the son of Peter Mahon, a lawyer notable for the Mt Erebus disaster inquiry, and has written a book about his father.