Medical rescue plane arrives at South Pole to pick up sick worker from station

CALGARY – A rescue plane has safely completed the first leg of a dangerous mid-winter flight to a South Pole research station to pick up a sick worker.

A Twin Otter aircraft owned by Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air has landed at the Amundson-Scott South Pole Station shortly after 5 p.m. ET.

Peter West of the National Science Foundation says the pilots will require about 10 hours of rest before waiting for another “favourable weather window” to make the 10-hour return journey.

The U.S.-based research foundation operates the year-round facility.

The flight is necessary because a worker at the research station requires hospitalization.

West says a second patient may also need to be taken out, but that decision has yet to be made.

Pilots don’t normally travel in the Antarctic during the winter because of the risk associated with the extreme cold and darkness.

“They’re also flying over a continent the size of the U.S. and Mexico combined, with no airports to divert to,” West said. “So that’s an issue.”

There is also no tarmac runway at the Pole, meaning aircraft must land with skis on compacted snow in nearly total darkness.

The plane left this morning from Rothera, a British station on the Antarctic peninsula. A second aircraft is still there and will provide search-and-rescue capability if needed.

West said no other details about either patient will be released for confidentiality reasons.

Both planes left Calgary a week ago and got to Rothera on Monday. They were held up in Punta Arenas, Chile, since Thursday due to bad weather.

“The planes are rated to operate in temperatures as low as -75 Celsius. Generally, at (the South) Pole it’s about -60 C at this time of year, but it fluctuates,” West said.

Kenn Borek provides contractual logistical support to the Antarctic Program, according to the foundation, and conducted similar evacuations in 2001 and 2003.