Following a phone call from the team today at 2pm, We have been informed they may get delayed leaving both the South Pole and Patriot Hills due to worsening weather conditions.
They were due to fly back today to Patriot hills which is close to where they started from in a twin otter plane. This takes about 6-7hours. They were then due to fly after standy-by, on the main flight off the continent to Punta Arenas in Chile aboard a russian Ilyushin jet aircraft.
Pat reports “We are still on stand-by and may be here for a while longer, its -42.5 degrees celcius outside the south pole station at the moment here. The visibilty earlier was 500metres and a 24knot wind, very strong for here I’m being told. We were also informed that the wind at patriot hills is over 50knots (approx 100kmph)grounding all aircraft. This delay could have a knock-on effect and delay everything back 3-4 days. The visibilty is improving at present to a few miles so fingers crossed for now”
We have received some new images from the team today, they were put on our FTP. Details available from the office for access.
Photo: Twin otter at Patriot Hills ’05
