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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."
Give him his 100 gallons so he can get home and then have him fly the 100 gallons back to them, if it's physically possible for him to do this. Seems like they are being kind of rude to him, but then again they don't *have* to sell him their gas, I suppose. Thinking about it, the kind of people they seem to be, you would think they want him out of there as son as possible.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
And why do we have military bases there? They said they want to discourage tourism. This makes me want to go there and check it out.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I feel these things about the computer systems that I build, and I appreciate the feeling. I also have a fetish for flying, and joined the Air Force to enjoy aircraft and being around them...even though my job is with computers.
Still, it stands out to me...I would not trust anything that I built to fly my ass down to the other end of the state...let alone over something as barren and deadly as the north/south poles.
It certainly takes a special kind of person to look at the plane that he built and say to himself "Yes, technically it can perform this task." and completely ignore the other voice in his soul saying "Although perhaps I should not force my luck."
I love flying, I really do. I love fixing aircraft and flying them. I also know not to try to fly over the damn south pole, north pole, or anywhere else that I might die in...assuming that I survive that 1 in 1,000,000,000 flight hours crash.
My gosh son. There is a reason that only military aircraft regularly fly over antarctica. Its because if it goes down...supposedly they can send another one...and...those people signed up to die in the service of their country.
There is one other person that I can think of with this mentality, and only one. Chuck Yeager. Perhaps this man should take his fearless and confident self down to the local recruiter and tell them he needs a new job as a test pilot.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
This has been on the news for the past couple of days down here, news say that he didn't do much forward planning or contact any of the organisations in antarctica before hand to let them know what he was going to do ... it's probably this that annoys them most, having to rescue him because they didn't have a chance to advise him beforehand.
:-)
Got to admire his sense of adventure though
Maybe next year I'll get a chance to do an antarctic fly by.
From what I heard on the radio this morning (in New Zealand), he was quite irresponsible and that's why they're not going out of their way to actively help him. Among other things, he'd only allocated two hours of spare fuel for a journey expected to be over thirty hours, which is just plain stupid in most people's judgement.
What they don't want to do is set a precedent of bailing out stupidity. I think he's getting a good deal with the free board the offer to ship back his plane is just luxury. If they don't want to give him an easy way out by selling fuel, why should they?
It's not as if this is a continuing problem, and every week there's some yahoo who needs to buy fuel because he was a dumb-ass.
Um... yeah, it is. Maybe not at the moment in the Antarctic, but it's definitely a problem in national parks all across the US, where SAR teams have put their lives at risk and spend tens of thousands of dollars to rescue some bumbling adventurers who went in with no plans for an emergency except a cell phone. It's a huge trend that's happening everywhere, not only in the US. It's a drain on the resources of the rescue squads, the communities in that area, and the goverment who has to send in rescues.
YOSAR, one of the most famous Search and Rescue teams, had in 2002, 182 rescues, of which only 116 had injuries or illnesses. No details on the others, but a good bet the others were lost/stranded. Still, a rescue every other day, that costs taxpayers a lot of money. Las Vegas SAR has similar numbers, where hikers and climbers get stranded out after dark and need to be rescued once a week. The outdoor craze has led many people to head out, inexperienced and unprepared, with the idea that if they get stuck a quick cell phone call will save them.
So it's with good reason they are denying him the fuel, setting a good precedent. If they give him fuel, what's next? Maybe the next idiot will run out of fuel before he reaches the base, and they'll have to dispatch some rescuers. And the next may not know where they are, they'll have to send out rescue teams in all directions. And who pays for it? Me and all the other taxpayers.
He's fine. He's safe. Ship him out on the next flight, box up his plane and let him pay for delivery if he wants his plane shipped to him. Charge him storage costs, charge him for the food and room. Charge him up the @ss for all of it and send him on his way.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Imagine you're driving through Texas or Oklahoma or something, deep in the heart of nowhere. You've been driving into the wind so your gas ran out sooner than you expected. You pull into a gas station -- it's open, and they have gas. But they won't sell you any, because they want to discourage other outsiders like you from invading their space (which isn't even theirs; they only moved there last month). They say: Too bad, you should've had a contingency plan. They'd be happy to put you on the first bus home, though. They can even have your car towed for you if you want, at your expense.
Great attitude, diptwats.
And you gotta wonder, when planning that trip, assuming he deserves his pilot's certification, he knew how far he could make it given strong headwinds. Ya think it's possible, however unlikely, that he thought, ``Ah, well, it's a risk I'm willing to take, 'cause the American's will bail me out if I fuck up''? I agree that we should, ordinarily, try to help people simply out of kindness. But that's just stupid.
Perhaps they need the fuel to get home themselves.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I don't know about planes, but I do know a little about the salvage laws on water.
Basically, if you issue an SOS from a ship, any nearby vessel is bound by marine law to come and help you out. Mind, however, that they are bound to to help your soul, i.e. the people, out. There is no obligation whatso'ever torwards equipment.
If your rescuer decides to help your equipment out in any way, they are entitiled to compensation according the salvage law. Unlike what people usually think, this does not mean they get your ship (at least, not automatically), but it is a long and very generous process torwards the rescuer.
In fact, the process is so generous that there are lots of stories of people, when asked for help, that trick the askers into making it an SOS call (asking them to burn a red flare and such), so they can claim salvage.
My instructor recommended that we ask anyone who offers us help in non-emergency cases to sign an LOF, which stands for "Loyd's Open Form". It's an agreement that they do not ask for salvage, and instead agree to a compensation according to a known table.
Returning to the subject at hand - this man had an emergency. He landed his plane as an SOS. He is being treated better than the rules dictate. The rules say that they should have saved his soul (which they did - offering him shelter and food), and that they have no obligation torwards his equipment. The rules further say that if they ship his plane anywhere at all, they deserve compensation (above shipping costs), which are quite dear.
All in all, he has received a fair deal.
I can draw lines on a map and "claim" it's mine too.
No you can't. This isn't some haphazard, disorganized word-of-mouth claim, there are very clearly defined laws regarding this type of thing. In order for a country to have sovereign control of land, they must maintain a "continuing and ongoing presence." That is, if they don't have someone there for n days of the year, for the last m years consecutively, then the land becomes fair game for another nation to squat.
Antarctica is worthless to live on, and far to difficult to take advantage of its minerals. It's not even important as a tactical position AFAIK.
Antarctica is very important, from a scientific point of view. There are life forms in Antarctica that don't exist anywhere else on Earth. Millennia of fossils and history and safely stored beneath its miles of ice. It is also the ideal place for studying meteorites from other worlds.
That last one, I found particularly interesting. Do you know why Antarctica is so popular for finding rocks from other planets/bodies? It's not because they land there with any greater frequency than anywhere else - it's that they're much easier to find. When you see a rock sitting on top of an ice shelf, where the next nearest rock is buried beneath 4,000 ft of ice, you can be pretty certain that that rock fell from the sky. Cool, eh?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I would say that he has sunk at least $70k in the aircraft, with about $10-20k in custom electronics that was donated to him.
I did not mean to offend, I wrote that based on having seen what the pilot of a small aircraft looks like when his body washes ashore after drifting for a while through the North Atlantic in the shreds of his dinghy. It is not a pretty sight I assure you. I also know how easily a routine flight can turn into a disaster. Even when the pilot is a chap who has extensive experience. The point is that that all the experience 97% of pilots have is usually gained in climates much more forgiving than the arctic. Flying in the arctic is a whole school of piloting in onto it self, a single engine aircraft has little place there unless it is hardened for arctic flying and in the high polar region even such hardend single engine machines are a risk to fly never mind a kitplane. Personally I would not attempt to over fly either of the polar region in anything less than a twin engined machine with heavy duty cold climate equipment, a satilte beaccon and well proportioned survival pack. If that guy had run out of fuel before he reached McMurdo I doubt he would have lasted until the rescue chopper arrived even if he had an emergency satilite beacon.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
You must keep in mind that their statement of discouraging tourism has more ramifications than just keeping people away from the station. There are many considerations that you're apparently not making. Here's a short list of reasons I can come up with, and I'm not even trying:
1.) They have a specific amount of fuel at the station, for their own use and for reserves. If they're to sell him any fuel, it must come from their working stock, or their reserves. The working stock is there to run their own machinery (snowmobiles, their own aircraft, generators and such) and the reserves are their safety net in case something goes wrong, because they're a long way from help if something does go really badly for them. What makes you think they can spare 400 liters of fuel without endangering themselves whenever someone shows up like this?
2.) They're afraid that if they give him the fuel, he'll do something utterly stupid, like, say, trying to fly his craft out instead of leaving in a safer, more sensible manner. The fact he's there to begin with is a testament to his lack of foresight, and maybe they don't want the added burden of a possible rescue mission, or knowing they gave him the rope to hang himself with. They offered him a free ride on the next boat out of the area, after all, so it's not like they're leaving him out in the cold (so to speak).
3.) They're genuinely afraid that if they give him the fuel, they'll have to deal with this situation again, with the ramifications of (1) and (2) above, when the next daredevil decides to drop in. By making his exit expensive and unglorious, they can discourage others from trying the same.
4.) Replacing the volume of fuel that he wants will require them to fit the extra fuel into their next shipment(s), and so rather than selling him the fuel and going through the effort to replace it, why wouldn't they just let him arrange (and pay for) his own fuel shipment? This doesn't help with (2) above, but even so, it's not their problem to solve.
All in all, it seems very short sighted of you to tell them how to run their outpost when you seem not to understand the situation they'll be putting themselves in by helping him.
Virg
There are many cases of military aircraft having to land, and being helped by thier hosts.
They are. They went out of their way to provide the necessary resources to avoid loss of human life. On the other hand, his "fly over Antarctica" project is not something that they need to assist him with by draining their *own* contingency fuel supplies.
Heck, even if it's just to discourage people from pulling stupid stunts, I sympathize with the scientists. Imagine that you're a scientist working at the most remote research station in the world, on a continent given over entirely to scientific research.
All of a sudden, a *stupid* Australian drops his plane into your research post and wants you to fuel him up and check the oil. He didn't have clearance to pull this stunt, despite the fact that it would have been more than easy to ask. If he really needed extra fuel, he could just have asked them, paid for it, and had it shipped ahead of time. Everyone *else* in Antarctica, including the scientists, is required to plan ahead for safety. All the scientists there have $N$ quantity of food and resources, have only $N$ days allocated to them to do their research (not easy to get grants to fund Antarctic research), and instead are dealing with some thrillseeker.
Frankly, I think that his plane should be confiscated and used by whatever SAR people are responsible for near-Antarctic rescues.
This Aussie reminds me of the idiot girl in "The Cold Equations". He's damned lucky that nothing worse happened to him.
May we never see th
Well, that's not entirely true...
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
They have fed him and offered to send him home. Apparently they are not getting a lot of credit for that.
Last I checked, Australia was owned by nobody, by international agreement.
I believe the word for that sort of action would be `piracy'. At least that's what it would be called if it happened in the open seas, in international waters. You don't get to just `take' people's property, and this hardly qualifies as a salvage operation.I'm sure if these people did loan him some fuel, it would be well payed for. Even if Jon isn't rich, he can afford to pay a few thousand dollars for $200 worth of fuel (that's about how much it would be here, anyways) to save his ~ $100k plane.
If they diverted to a commercial or otherwise public airport, yes they would probably be sold fuel. That's because those airports have gas stations that are in the business of selling fuel. There is no such thing in Antartica.
Consider a private pilot making an emergency landing at a private airport, perhaps a military landing strip. They would not sell him fuel, because there are no businesses selling fuel at those airports.
The folks in Antartica have made sure the pilot is taken care of, providing food and shelter, and offering him a ride home. They have no obligation to help him out with his airplne, especially when giving him some of their fuel would likely be a great inconvenience to them. It's not easy to get fuel to Antartica, you know.
BTW, it's not likely that there is any sort of control tower in Antartica that could have refused him permission to land, even if they wanted to.
Has anyone stopped to think how valuable that fuel is to the people at the base? They are living in Antarctica, their lives depend on that fuel. The amount of food he consumes is probably negligable, but to give up that much fuel could potentially be a life or death decision. My house can be heated for an entire winter (in Ohio) by 60-70 gallons of fuel oil, what if the next shipment of fuel was delayed? Then that 100 or so gallons becomes a very big deal for those still at the base. If the plane came from a kit, dis-assemble it and ship it back FedEx ;)
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Quoth the poster: Now both the Americans and the New Zealanders there are refusing to sell him fuel.
Qouth the article: But both the Americans and a nearby New Zealand base refuse to give him the fuel
The article has no indication that an offer to buy fuel made made by the pilot, nor any statements that the US or New Zealand have refused to sell him fuel. This is simply a "govmint"-bash troll on the parts of mirio and the--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Wonder what they'd say if one of his buddies flew in with the fuel. In the end they might have less traffic there if they just give him the fuel.
Agreed.
I used to work as a leader of a Civil Air Patrol search and rescue team. I've seen my share of aircraft accidents. My mother wonders why I persist with this flying 'nonsense' when she knows how I had to burn an entire change of clothes because they smelled like two week old decaying human flesh. I literally stripped naked outside (we had a privacy fence and lived in a rural area) and took a shower with a water hose because I didn't want to bring that smell into my house. I still remember that smell today. It was like nothing else you have ever smelled. Roadkill and humans strangely don't smell the same when decaying. I honestly believe that we are genetically programmed to be horrified by that scent.
Having said that I do believe that there is simply an appeal to take chances and do something incredible with one's life. That is why I fly and will continue to do so.
That's because Visa and Mastercard are controlled by essentially the same banks. A few years ago, they were sued for antitrust because their member banks agreed not to issue cards other than Visa/MC. Visa pooh-poohing Mastercard would be kind of like Disneyland pooh-poohing Disney World.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
as a previous poster reminded me there is no need for AvGas at either MCM or Scott Base. Small plane ops are conducted with the DeHavilland Twin Otter aircraft which is turboprop powered and uses JP, not AvGas.
Typically, on a high risk flight there is a "point of no return". I have no idea whether this was in his contingency plan, but he sure seemed to have passed it.
In other words, you need a plan of how much resources you have at what stage of your journey. At each milestone, he should have had a number for fuel that meant he had 150% times the amount he needed to complete the journey or turn around.
He seemingly ignored the signals (strong headwinds) to turn around and got himself stuck.
Another famous case is that of British explorer Shackleton, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/. He was breaking ice on the way into Antarctica late in the season. He didn't consider how he might get himself out or turned around. "Failure is not an option". It may not be an option, but it's absolutely a possiblity. His bull-headedness got his crew stuck and some killed.
When the odds are against you, and things aren't going right giving up, and trying again under more favorable conditions is absoluetly an option.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!