Australian aviation crew carries out daring midwinter Antarctica rescue

An Australian aviation crew has carried out a daring midwinter mission to rescue a US expedition member from a station in Antarctica in freezing temperatures and total darkness.

Skytraders said the “extraordinary” mission took place last Friday after a request for urgent help with a medical evacuation from McMurdo Station.

After an initial delay due to the weather, the aviation company said it was able to land its Airbus A319 in “extremely challenging conditions” including temperatures of -43C (-45.4F).

The patient was then safely transferred onto the plane, known as Snowbird 1, which carried on to Christchurch in New Zealand, where the patient was treated. He is now recovering well.

Skytraders deputy chief executive Duncan Mackay told the Australian newspaper the plane had undergone a complete refit into a specialised medevac configuration within 24 hours of the call.

However takeoff was then delayed for 12 hours while the crew waited for a suitable window in the weather.

The plane eventually took off from the Tasmanian city of Hobart in the early hours of Friday morning, before landing at the US research station on Ross Island.

No details were given about the patient or his condition, other than that he was now recovering well.

Mackay said his company believed it was the closest a civilian airliner had operated so close to winter solstice, which was on 21 June.

“Skytraders has conducted winter medevacs previously, but never this close to the winter solstice,” he told the paper. He said “an enormous amount of experience and familiarity with the conditions” was needed to safely land an airliner on an ice runway in total darkness at -43°C.

The pilot, Captain Al Wallach said the successful mission reflected the specialist expertise of the team’s people, which included the flight crews, meteorologists, operational planers, runway teams and medical personnel.

“Every Antarctic mission demands absolute precision, but winter operations raise the complexity significantly,” he said “The conditions we encountered were right on the edge of even the most specialised aircraft capability.”

Skytraders carried out a similar mission in March 2020, when the US requested help evacuating a member of the US Antarctic Program also based in McMurdo, although temperatures were slightly warmer at -30°C.