A small plane with two sick USA workers has arrived safely in Chile after leaving Antarctica in a rescue mission from a remote South Pole research station, according to a statement from the National Science Foundation.
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Flights to the pole stop in the Antarctic winter, when the Sun dips below the horizon and the temperature falls to minus 70C.
The Twin Otter plane landed earlier in the day at the Rothera research base, on the Antarctic Peninsula, after making the risky journey back from the South Pole early Wednesday morning.
The plane flew about 1,500 miles to the southernmost point on Earth from the Rothera Research Station, run by Britain, off the Antarctic Peninsula. The workers were transferred to a second Canadian-owned Twin Otter plane for the flight to Punta Arenas.
The planes, operated by the Canadian company Kenn Borek Air, are specially created to operate in extremely cold temperatures and run missions to the Arctic during North America’s summer. What we do know, however, is that the patient is seasonally employed through the Lockheed Martin Antarctic Support Contract, and that their illness could not be managed at the station. The Twin Otter can fly in temperatures as low as minus-103 degrees, he said.
A team of pilots and a medical worker are in the midst of evacuating a sick staff member from a science base near the South Pole. The South Pole rescue effort was mounted in order to extract a sick contractor, but another individual was also evacuated due to an undisclosed medical issue.
The plane arrived at Rothera at approximately 1:15 p.m. ET after leaving the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the early morning hours, West said.
Near the world’s southernmost point, workers spend this period withstanding almost complete darkness and dramatically low temperatures, on Tuesday, the thermometer dropped to -60 degrees Celsius (-76 degrees Fahrenheit).
When conditions permit, the workers will be flown to Chile for treatment, although the National Science Foundation has not disclosed the nature of their illnesses.
The plane landed around 9:40 pm on Wednesday.
A daring South Pole medical rescue is underway.
Prior to taking off, the fuel, batteries and hydraulics need to be warmed.
“It’s all going according to plan”, said Paul Seagrove, another spokesman for the British Antarctic Survey in London, which operates the country’s research station.
A second aircraft was also part of the mission.
“The air and Antarctica are unforgiving environments and punishes any slackness very hard”, said Tim Stockings, operations director for the British Antarctic Survey.
“Things can change very quickly down there” with ice, high winds and snow, he said.
Before they left, there were 48 people – 39 men and nine women – at the station for the winter.
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In 1999, the USA station’s doctor Jerri Nielsen, who was self-treating her own breast cancer, required medical evacuation but weather conditions were more favorable, as the mission took place in the spring.
