Australia’s Ice Jet making Antarctic medi-vac flight
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The A319 at Wilkins, AAD photo by Nisha Harris
Updated, medi-vac completed overnight
The Australian Antarctic Division’s small hot rod Airbus A319 jet is getting a mid winter workout deep into the ice continent today as it responds to a rescue call from the US base at McMurdo Sound at 78 degrees S.
The medical evacuation will occur when flight conditions allow, to retrieve an American polar expeditioneer and bring him or her back to Christchurch in New Zealand, which is the usual gateway city for US Antarctic lifts to McMurdo and onwards to its Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole.
The A319 was positioned in Christchurch yesterday from Hobart, where its role during the southern polar summer is to service the Wilkins Blue Runway, some distance from Australia’s Casey station, which is a hub for various bases and expeditions in that quadrant of the continent, often in conjunction with feeder support flights using ski-equipped Twin Otters (replacing the CASA 212s) as well as a turbo-prop version of the DC-3.
However the A319 is also extensively used for scientific charters by Antarctic treaty nations who stage through McMurdo as well as Wilkins, and since it began services in the 2007-2008 summer season it has been used for Christchurch-McMurdo and Hobart-McMurdo flights.
The sun has almost returned to McMurdo now, when it reaches a point less than four degrees below the horizon at noon local time, with civil and nautical twilight conditions at play for more than half each 24 hour period at this time of the year.
McMurdo allows wheeled aircraft landings all year subject to conditions on a hard ice runway or frozen sea ice, and is generally less cold than many airports in Siberia, northern Canada and parts of Alaska.
However it isn’t exactly warm either, and is currently reporting -23 C.
Updated. The medical evacuation of the US scientist to Christchurch has been completed.
Media reports as to the flight being dangerous are incorrect. It was every bit as safe as a flight in winter to Montreal or Minsk, both of which are far colder in terms of operational conditions than McMurdo.
The AAD flights are models of safe and professional planning, and every element of danger in the mission was painstakingly addressed including the provision of search and rescue backup for the Christchurch-McMurdo sector, which is identical to the safety standards that are applied to regular commercial flights through similar latitudes and conditions by Qantas, LAN Chile and Aerolineas Argentinas jets carrying thousands of people each way between Australia, New Zealand and South America every week.
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The Casa 212′s are no longer used by the Australian Antarctic Division. They have been replaced with Twin Otters on hire from Canada along with the DC-3.
*thanks copy updated.
Medical evacuations seem to be quite regular from Antarctica.
In October 2011, American woman Renee-Nicole Douceur was evacuated from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and flown to McMurdo Base on the DC-3 with Basler turbo prop modification. From McMurdo she was then flown to Christchurch on a US Air Force C-17.
Amazing to hear of DC-3s still operating – in such extreme conditions and with engines that were scarcely contemplated when it was developed. What an aircraft!
I would imagine refuelling won’t be a trivial matter – although Jet fuel has a much lower freezing point than -23C, but it is possible it may solidifies at certain circumstances!
I wish the medical team and the American polar expeditioneer safe and quick return to Christchurch.
TT,
The A319 does not refuel in Antarctica, it tankers enough fuel for the return flight. Other aircraft such as the Hercs, DC3 and Twin Otters use Jet A1 with FSII (Fuel system icing inhibitor) already added when refuelling in Antarctica.
In fact the A319 doesn’t refuel at Wilkins but I know that it has refuelled at McMurdo on some of its charters although I don’t know if it did so on this mission.
This is why on those charters the A319 performed flights with many more passengers than it ever takes on its return Hobart-Wilkins flights, as discussed a while back on Plane Talking. And also why it carried full freight, and on at least one occasion, flew non-stop from McMurdo to Melbourne Tullamarine, which would have been impossible under the restrictions we choose to place on the jet to use our own 4000 metres blue ice runway.
This particular A319 used was previously the Air France Club Petroleum jet which operated between Paris and a mix of public and private strips in Nigeria and is fitted out with long range tanks and other LR package improvements usually seen these days on the ACJs, the corporate version of the jet.
The issue Rutherford raises is pretty critical to the future of the Australian Antarctic airlift. The hobbling of Wilkins potential by refusing fuel to larger aircraft when it is stored on site for turbo-props is a PC nonsense. It reduces the utility of the strip to a degree where China is likely to just do its own version of an ice runway nearby and set up a fuel depot like that at McMurdo served by oceanic tankers supported if necessary by ice breakers.
The issue of tankering aviation fuel to Antarctica may seem perverse in terms of costs and efficiency. But it allows a significant part of the research manpower to fly in and fly out within short term research projects on a variety of locations without needing to keep, feed and heat them for an entire year waiting for the supply ship to come back with the return of the ‘summer’ season, so there is on a per scientist basis, a reduction in the costs of the science they are doing.
There has been a series of stories about Australian Antarctic air services on Plane Talking, such as this one:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/12/09/the-heat-is-on-australias-antarctic-ice-runway/
I’ve seen military standards that mix and match these 2 but I think it should be medevac (MEDical EVACuation) rather than medivac (MEDIcal VACation perhaps?)
I should added the Airbus does not refuel when used by the AAD, cannot comment when on charter to other nations.
There many not be the fire fighting facilities at McMurdo that they would have at Montréal.
Then again, an aircraft fire in a A319 landing at McMurdo may be more survivable than a fire in a plastic 787 melting at Tokyo.
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