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Australian Pilot Stranded In Antarctica
mirio writes "Australian Jon Johanson is currently stranded in Antarctica at the US McMurdo outpost. He was attempting a flight from New Zealand to Argentina via the South Pole when he encountered a headwind that caused him to burn more fuel and divert to the base. Now both the Americans and the New Zealanders there are refusing to sell him fuel. Jon's story is amazing. He has flown his homebuilt RV-4 around the world three times and to the North Pole. You can read about his trips around the world here."
Antarctica has been divided up since about the end of the 50s:
t ml
A nt arctica.htm
http://www.secretsoftheice.org/explore/treaty.h
each country has a weird pizza like slice or claim...
http://www.atlapedia.com/online/maps/political/
abc.net.au:
There is a bit of a difference between having an accident in an C-130 hardened for arctic flying and equipped with state of the art surival kits and satilite rescue beacons while flying in the S-Arctic and having an accident while flying something you built in your garage in the S-Arctic. The N-Atlantic, just for example, is full of the bones of people who got the yen to cross an ocean that sports some of the worst weather on the planet in a small Cessna or a small costal sporting yacht and please note that the North Atlantic has a relatively good network of SAR assets and well equpped surface rescue forces and good radar cover. It does not surprise me that the countries that maintain a presence in the S-Arctic are very reluctant to see this kind of thing become popular because rescue assets are not available in the region in nubers even remotely adequate to deal with any sizable influx of daredevil adventurers. The plain fact is that there are alot more people with pilots licenses that have more money than sense, this guy is one of them, and he is bloody lucky to be alive this could easily have ended very differently. The real question here is when do people become culpable for getting them selves in deep trouble even though they should have known better. And this applies especially when rescue workers get killed needlessly while trying to pull these fools out of the shit. It did not happen this time but it does all to often. There is a point when the excuse "Well doooh! He was just trying to have a little fun." begins to wear thin.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
U.S. Research Stations in Antarctica are not run by the military. They are funded by the National Science Foundation. The Military does the flying because they have the expertise and the equipment. They do so under contract to the NSF.
The Navy detachments that once ran the research stations (NSFA) and exclusively did the flying (VXE6) were disestablished several years ago, but they hadn't been exclusive for years before that.
When I was first at McMurdo in 1995, NSFA ran the hospital, the air traffic control tower, weather and an electronics shop. They had already ceded the cooking, firefighting and other activities to the civilian contractors in previous years.
These days, the only military presence on the Ice is the New York Air National Guard (NYANG) who flies the LC-130s, (I think) regular Air Force who fly C-17s and C-141s, and an occasional Navy person at the McMurdo radio station (still military-affiliated).
The overwhelming majority of us down here are civilians.
Unlike most everyone else here, I know a little about this. I was involved with the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) for about 10 years and I've been to the South Pole 4 times.
The policy of the USAP is not to support private travel in the Antarctic. Period. They will perform SAR activities and help you return to your place of origin. This is the policy. It was set by the National Science Foundation in Washington DC (more or less, the USAP offices are in Ballston now).
As far as this guy goes, he's not being treated any differently than the Gore-tex Trans-Antarctic expedition was, or the outfits running adventure travel packages to the South Pole are. The USAP will only intervene to prevent loss of life. If you don't like it write your congressman.
This guy claims to know what he's doing but that doesn't appear to be the case to me. There is a concept in flying called the Point of Safe Return (PSR). Your PSR is determined by your actual range which depends on your fuel load and effective groundspeed. It appears to me that either this guy didn't know what his PSR was or chose to ignore it (remember his goal was not McMurdo, South Pole or even Palmer Station, but Puntas Arenas, Chile). As far as the conditions go, that part of the world is known for bad weather (understatement). Its not uncommon for the USAP LC-130s to reach their PSR and have to turn back. Even given WX updates from McMurdo and Christchurch, things can get dicey. I was on a return flight from MCM to CHC one time when we had to land in Invercargill due to severe unpredicted headwinds.
Its hard to say what the actual fuel situation is at MCM. Most equipment there runs on DFA or JP4. There is some MoGas for pickup trucks and snowmobiles. So there is a multi-year supply of those fuels on hand. AvGas, on the other hand is only used to support light plane ops and the supply of that would be based on year to year science program requirements.
The adventure travel outfits seem to be able to support light plane ops in antarctica without depending the USAP to bail them out so I don't see any reason why this guy couldn't have done the same. It sounds to me like he's been offered a fair deal: a ride home on the next return flight and a ride for his plane when the re-supply ship sails for NZ.
McMurdo and Pole currently receive one refuling ship per year, in late January or early February (when the ice is the thinnest, and shortly after the Icebreaker has cut a channel).
The U.S. Antarctic Program is evaluating alternate energy sources to get our fuel resupply to every other year.
It's precious and it's expensive here.