Mission success for Calgary-based plane at South Pole
Posted Jun 22, 2016 9:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CALGARY – A Canadian-owned Twin Otter turboprop plane that left Antarctica earlier today has now landed in Punta Arenas, Chile, with two sick workers who were picked up at a remote U-S outpost at the South Pole.
From there, the sick workers are to be transported to a medical facility.
The National Science Foundation says that location will not be disclosed, and no details of the patients’ medical conditions will be released out of privacy concerns.
The workers had been brought to a British station on the edge of Antarctica by a crew in a second Canadian Twin Otter after they were picked up earlier at the Amundsen-Scott research post at the pole.
Both Twin Otter planes are owned by Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air.
Peter West with the National Science Foundation, which runs the U-S polar outpost, says the nine-to-10 hour flight between the South Pole and the British station was perilous.
The first day of winter in the Southern Hemisphere was Monday and the sun will not rise at the South Pole until the first day of spring in September.
West says the extreme cold affects a lot of things on planes, including fuel, which need to be warmed before takeoff.
