At that time, the evacuation flight through the cold and darkness of the six-month polar night was one of the most challenging on record.
A roundtrip flight from Rothera to the Pole would take a minimum of 10 hours, not including a mandatory rest period for the crew, and would face the potentially challenging weather conditions of the polar spring.
Spring warming produces strong winds and extremely changeable weather that is difficult to predict. Unlike in April of 2001, however, the amount of daylight is increasing. Nevertheless, such a flight would pose some measure of risk to the aircrews, which will be taken into account in making the final decision on an evacuation attempt.
As the Twin Otters are en route to Punta Arenas, NSF officials are also considering whether a U.S. military aircraft, staging from New Zealand, could be used to assist in an evacuation, flying to McMurdo Station, NSF's logistics hub on the coast of Antarctica, where it would meet the Twin Otter arriving from the Pole, some 1200 kilometers (800 miles) away.
Simultaneously, NSF has requested through the New Zealand Antarctic Program to have C-130 Hercules aircraft from the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RZNAF) 40 Squadron stand by to make a flight to McMurdo to meet the Twin Otter.
The various contingencies are being considered in order to accommodate the possible deployment of a long-range aircraft as well as to take advantage of features of different aircraft to use the several airfields at McMurdo Station.
As spring comes to the Southern Hemisphere, normal flight operations will soon commence to support the several thousand researchers and other personnel who travel to Antarctica under the auspices of the U.S. Antarctic Program.
The Twin Otters flown by Kenn Borek as well as U.S. Air Force C-141s and C-17s, ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules transport planes flown by the New York Air Na
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Contact: Peter West
pwest@nsf.gov
703-292-7761
National Science Foundation
11-Sep-2003