14th January;
Early morning alert, to leave the ice.
Mark our friendly weather man has given the all clear, for conditions that will allow the plane to land safely. A team of people are now down on the ice runway preparing it for what is to me the scariest landing and take off in aviation.
3 km of pure ice, the pilots can’t use brakes, as the plane will spin out of control. It has to come to a final stop through the force of gravity and reverse trust in there massive engines. On leaving once its starts to take off, there will be no room for a re-think, its up or crash out of control.
The pilots are some of the most amazing I have seen, to do this job you need nerves of steel and these Russian crew got buckets of nerve.
The Eagle is about to leave Punta Arenas in 4 hours, cross fingers that the weather doesn’t change while they are on-route. We are really looking forward to the next stage of our adventure.
Will update all of you later on arrival of the plane and let you know if we’ll get off today.
