A Twin Otter aircraft on a medical evacuation flight taxis at NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on June 21, 2016.(Photo: National Science Foundation)
A plane left the South Pole on Wednesday on the return leg of a daring rescue mission to save the life of a worker who was at one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, the South Pole's Amundsen-Scott research station in the middle of Antarctica.
A small, Canadian owned-and-operated Twin Otter plane had taken a nine-hour, 1,500-mile flight Tuesday from the outer edge of Antarctica to the South Pole, the National Science Foundation said.
As of early Wednesday, the plane is now on its way back to the continent's edge with at least one sick passenger.
The plane will land at the British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Station, located on the Antarctic peninsula at the continent's edge, later Wednesday. The patient or patients will then be transported to a hospital in South America.
As North America celebrates the first days of summer, the South Pole remains enshrouded in total winter darkness with unimaginably cold temperatures that hover around 60 to 80 degrees below zero.
The temperature Tuesday afternoon at the South Pole station was 75 degrees below zero, with a wind chill that felt like 108 below, the science foundation's weather station reported.
At that temperature, plane equipment can malfunction and fuel and hydraulic fluid can turn to jelly.
The sun will not appear on the horizon at the South Pole until September.
"Antarctica is cold, dark, and the mission dangerous for even the most experienced pilots," according to a tweet from Alexandra Witze, a correspondent for the journal
Nature.
Only two other midwinter rescue operations have ever been successfully attempted (in 2001 and 2003) since the station opened some 60 years ago. Another one in 1999 was done in the spring.
“We are very, very concerned and will be until this is over,” said Kelly Falkner, director of the foundation's polar programs.
The name of the sick worker has not been released, nor has his or her condition, due to medical privacy rules.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The worker is an employee of Lockheed Martin, which provides logistical support at the station. A second person may also have been evacuated.
There are 48 people "overwintering" at the South Pole, according to the foundation.
This year, the last flight left the pole in mid-February. The next one was not expected until November.
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