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Subscribe to RSSA plane that went missing in Antarctica slammed into a mountain and there are not believed to be any survivors, rescuers said Saturday.
Three Canadians were on board the Twin Otter aircraft when it went missing Wednesday about halfway between the South Pole and the McMurdo Station research center.
“The aircraft wreckage is on a very steep slope, close to the summit of Mt Elizabeth. It appears to have made a direct impact that was not survivable. No details are available on the cause of the crash,” Maritime New Zealand, which has been coordinating the search operation, said in a statement. “The next of kin have been informed.”
It said the site of the crash was at the northern end of the Queen Alexandra mountain range at an altitude of about 13,000 feet.
Two helicopters reached the site at around 7.15 p.m. New Zealand time (1.15 a.m. ET), but were not able to land.
Rescuer Tracy Brickles said in the statement that it was very sad end to the operation.
“It has been difficult operation in challenging conditions but we remained hopeful of a positive result. Our thoughts are now with the families of the crewmen,” she said.
The Calgary Sun newspaper previously identified one of those aboard the plane as Bob Heath of the Northwest Territories, calling him a “star pilot” for Canadian firm Kenn Borek Air, which owns the plane.
In an emailed statement, Kenn Borek Air said one of its aircraft and a New York Air National Guard plane had also made “visual contact” with the crash site.
“No signs of activity are evident in the area surrounding the site, and it appears that the impact was not survivable,” the statement said.
It added that helicopter crews and mountain rescue teams would attempt to get to the site.
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Been following this story since it unfolded down here and we were hoping that some how they survived. But seems it is no longer the case...a sad outcome for all and sympathy to the families involved in Canada...the lost are a long way from home....
Well the beacon obviously survived. Do these things come on automatically?
shona1...Thank you for your compassion....All the BEST to our American neighbors down South....Take care....
HEY SHONA!!!
yes, unfortunately. terribly sad. :(
Yes. They have a built in G-meter sensor in them, and once they sense past a certain pre-programmed G threshold, they activate (as in impact). Anyone who learns how to fly private aircraft is well versed on the ELT (emergency locator transmitter) and how it works. Many boats, usually larger ones by default or bought via after market for smaller vessels, have something similar. However, their sensor is based on attitude relative to the horizon, not G-force. Once it gets past a certain degree level (as in a capsized boat, it triggers).
I have a friend in Florida who accidentally tripped one while removing it during a boat restoration and he forgot to deactivate it. Within 15 minutes a Coast Guard helicopter was hovering over him...on the shore. He had a lot of answering to do with the authorities and they threatened to send him the bill, but they didn't. Underwear pucker factor = 10 when you see a USCG Dauphin helicopter hovering over you.
In any event, RIP to these people. Flying in the extreme environments comes with extreme risks.
@10tacle... Cool story. I bet the first thing your friend looks for now is any and all emergency beacons. It is also nice to hear that they are effective with great response times. No real harm done and a learning lesson. Cool story though.
Man that sucks, straight into a mountain.. Antarctica might as well be the Moon since the environment is extremely harsh and unforgiving.. Lets hope that the next accident is a long time off and the science they are doing keeps giving us positive results..
This is very sad news. I hope that they can determine what caused the crash. The Twin Otter is one of the most reliable planes in the world and has one of the best safety records, to hear that one crashed is extremely rare. I hope that the families of those who died can get some answers as to what happened, it will make dealing with this tragedy a little easier for them. My condolences to the families and friends of those who were on this flight.
THey were at the SOuth Pole - conditions which, under the best circumstances place machinery at the very edge of what it can handle. I would be prettty sure that alll on board understood this and the risk they were taking by working and flying down there.R.I.P.
From the location it really looks like pilot error....sad to say
100 mph winds grounded the search early on, probably part of the reason for the crash as well, not all, if any, pilot error.
I have flown with Bob Heath in the Canadian Arctic and he was an amazing person and a very safe pilot. RIP Bob.
IF anybody was a live they are not NO more. Simply because they wouldn't lower anybody to the crash site to look.
Ray I agree, they should be Scientific and crash another plane with 3 guys and see if they survive. Maybe the best out of 3 times. ??
Sad for the loss; but wondering why an New York Air National Guard plane is in Antarctica.
Air National Guard planes have missions all over the world. I saw a South Carolina Guard cargo plane parked in Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam in 1970 and others in different parts of the world in my military career.
budgeting maybe?
the silly one: because the penguins don't build good airplanes so the American and Canadian scientists decided to use the service of other folks used to fly in the cold, and from their home country.
if you really want to find out: http://dmna.ny.gov/ang/nyang.php?page=contact
Anyhow who cares? Good, courageous, smart, hard working people died and that is what matters here.
RIP
"The New York Air National Guard 109th Airlift Wing's mission is to provide airlift support to the National Science Foundation's South Pole research program by flying specialized LC-130H Hercules airlifters, modified with wheel-ski gear, in support of Arctic and Antarctic operations. The 109th Airlift Wing is the only unit in the world to fly these aircraft."
Google is a great tool to use online..you'll get your answer in seconds!
Mike
After the decommissioning of VXE-6, the U.S. Navy squadron that also flew the aircraft, they turned their birds over to the 109th AW for primary direct support operations, I have a lot of hours riding those birds back and forth to the Ice from Christchurch, New Zealand. One of my fondest memories is flying from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to McMurdo around midnight New Years Eve 1988. My boss, Dr Ker Boyce had the aircrew plug in his portable CD player to the ship's intercom system and we listened to "Light my Fire" by the Doors. The long version. What a way to bring in the New Year! All this while sunlight pouring through the widows in the passenger/cargo section. What a rush! I will never forget it.
Starbuck, I hear you. I have pictures from when I was down on the Ice of C-130's from seven different nations all parked side by side on the ice runway at Williams Field at McMurdo Station. That was an eye opener! They were from Japan, Italy, New Zealand, France, Chile, Australia, and the U.S.
Really sorry that this tragedy happened to these guys.
Starbuck, I left Cam Ran Bay in Dec 1969 and remember there having been a number of Guard or Reserve C130s and C124s aircraft there from time to time during 1967 and 1969. I remember in '69 when we were attacked by sappers who blew up our 9 ton trash truck and the Air Force brought in a Reserve C-124 to fly the truck to the P.I. to be junked. They said that we were not allowed to leave "war damage" in country. What most people do not realize is that there were a few Air Force Reserve Airman stationed at Cam Ram. I became very good friends with a Reservist there in '69. In my 27 years I served a year at Thule Greenland but never got to Antarticia. I wish I had gotten to go there at least once.
I think failure to go over/around the mountain is the cause of the crash. Now if there are other contributing factors that is other news. We call that CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain). I would think that even if they survied the impact the cold would have taken care of them. To bad for all concerned.
They wouldn't have picked a steep face that practically left no chance of survival to try to put down on.
Do you know if it was daytime or nighttime when the crash occurred?
It was daytime. This time of year it is 24 hour daylight.
Ray, Antarctica is a very unforgiving and in many cases inaccessible terrain. I have been to the South Pole on more than one occasion and am familiar with the area where the crash occurred. You say they would not lower anybody to look for survivors? Lower them from what? These mountains geologically are in the same category as the Himalayas and are very high! Helos do not have the range or altitude capability to operate in those mountains as the thickness of the ice and snow is almost two miles thick. The air is also very thin. Antarctica has some of the worst flying weather on this planet and doing so always involves a calculated risk.
Beetee, The New York Air National Guard flies ski equipped C-130 Hercules transports that are much bigger and longer legged than a civilian flown Twin Otter. They are also much safer in bad weather.
My sincere condolences to the families of Twin Otter crew.
HEY ED!!!
Excellent and informative post. Thank you. ☺
There are helicopters operating there that can reach the crash site or get close enough to send in climbers. I'm not saying it would be easy but it is within the capabilities of the helos and the rescue climbers.
My husband (HMC) was summer support in Antarctica 89-92. The rescue teams are trained especially to work in that environment, if ANYONE could get to the survivors these folks would. This is a very small, close knit community. NOT being able to help the crew must be awful for them too.
Paramed
As I was the LPO of the NSFA Medial Dept at that time (1987-1991), made three trips to the Ice, and am pretty sure I knew your husband, you are correct. McMurdo is and always has been a very tight knit community and the people were all well trained to handle whatever came up. Every reasonable effort will be made to rescue any survivors, or in worst case scenario, get the remains of those three people out and send them home. Please give my regards to your husband. He will know who I am.
Hello chef! Did you put a different car as your avatar? Looks cool! Seems like you have a thing for Cadillacs.
They flew into a mountain peak. Probably IFR conditions. This accident calls for having heads-up displays that present real-time 1st person 3D terrain graphics. If my $50 flight simulator software can do this, why can't real pilots have these same graphics available when you can't see anything out the window?
Wait a minute, you're equating your flight simulator's capabilities to a real airplane. You may fly computers, but my guess is that you don't fly real airplanes.
I am surprised they allow such idiotic statements.
Please don't get in a real cockpit! You're gonna kill yourself!
Takes a lot of dedication for these scientists to brave these elements just for a paycheck. Rest in peace.
Hopefully no hazardous or radioactive material was on board we have to worry about also.
Scientists just don't work for a paycheck, the paycheck isn't big enough. Why did you bring up radioactive materials?
My guess is you didn't read any previous articles provided on this site when it was "breaking news".
Right, I didn't. Makes sense.
Hey, Ian Johnston! "Went missing" is a British idiom that is not considered correct English. The proper term would be "disappeared" or "vanished". Grow up. Go back to school and learn how to write a good news article using proper English that doesn't include slang or other questionable phrases.
Hey Scales67...
UP YOURS
sideways while on fire
with thorns !
("that doesn't include" easily replaced by "with out", you verbose buffoon )
Let me guess, scales is a jingoistic Yankee with an overweening sense of his own importance.
". . . in his new book from Oxford University Press, “Vernacular Eloquence,” Peter Elbow (the author of the classic writing books “Writing without Teachers” and “Writing with Power,” and professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) . . . points out that research shows that speech, surprisingly, is often not only more coherent than written language . . . (but)Our speech is full of what Elbow calls “valuable linguistic resources” that we not only can but should mine to create even the most formal writing. " [The Boston Globe, March 3, 2012]
Can you grasp Dr. Elbow's view of communication, scales? Do you have any comprehension of the diversity of expression on this planet?
Years ago, so long, in fact, that the ink has faded and the post-it on which it is written is crinkly, I tacked this reminder in my work space : "Write it as you say it". It's one of the useful guides I've picked up along the way but didn't note the source.
scales67 --- Hey! R U Real? People are missing, probably dead and you are arguing the shape of the table. Get a life !!!
Hey....scales67....! You are an idiot and a troll. Why are you looking to bash others here? This isn't about gun control or a political agenda. There are many places on line for that... Leave these good people alone..
First, condolences to the families.
To Scales: By your own definition, it's an idiom (British or otherwise) and is, therefore, correct as is.
"Is it good grammar? It may well stretch our hard-wired sense of syntax. To critics, a simple is missing would solve the problem. But because gone missing has acquired the status of an idiom, which is 'an unassailable peculiarity,' it is incorrect to correct it. As the fumblerule [of Grammar by William Safire] goes, 'idioms is idioms.' Relax and enjoy them."
So sad, I pray for you and yours. Thank you for your quest to improve our knowledge there.
condolences to the families.
Condolences to the famiies.
wow, yet another plane that hits a FRIGGIN MOUNTAIN, and no problem findin the wreckage, yet we still have to see any of that pesky plane wreckage from the pentagon, or shanksville crashes, oh wait thats right, ALL THAT WRECKAGE JUST DISINTEGRATED!!! boy that penatagon must use some HARD ASS CONCRETE, a mountain wont didintegrate a plane, but the pentagon will. i bet if that mountain was holding eveidence of a 3 trillion dollar fraud by the government, it and the plane would have been pulverized!!!!!
Proud of your paranoia?
??????? OK, if you say so, i guess as proud as you are of your herd mentality ignorance???
the ndaa is coming for u
If your too stupid to look past your twisted ideology you will never see. If all you read is anti-government tin-foil hat reports then you won't see any wreckage either. But if you actually go and search for the real facts you will find many photos and accounts of the wreckage, including 100 eye witnesses to the actual plain striking the building.
Wow, yet another individual who did not read the article! The Twin Otter aircraft is a four seat twin engine turbo prop aircraft that was Canadian and not American, which blows your bogus conspiracy theory dissertation right out the window! You really have no clue here!
Twin Otter has more than 4 seats. Vinfiz.net says 18 seats.
#1 never said anythign about where the AIRPLANE was made?????? 2 "The Twin Otter aircraft is a four seat twin engine turbo prop aircraft"...... sounds like AN AIRPLANE to me, regardless off where it was made or what size it was. read up on the russina airliner that smashed into a mountainside, or any number of other airliner crashes INTO MOUNTAINS, WHERE THE WRECKAGE HAS BEEN FOUND 3 you would rather nitpick the details of this story, than like all other propaganda sswallowing fools, admit the facts of the wreckage NOT FOUND in the 9/11 flase flag terrorist attacks, 4. i never wrote anything close to a dissertation, i made a comment on an internet article forum. 5 i never insulted your inabilityto assertain fact from propaganda, so y do you feel the need to insult me? OH YEAH THATS RIGHT, thats what alot of people that cant argue the facts do, throw insults in place of countering obvious facts, that cannot be countered.
Cry me a river bud!
Ferrosynthesis
You are absolutely correct and I was mistaken. I confused the older de Haviland Canada DHC-3 Otter for the DHC-6 Twin Otter. The DHC-3 was single engined and four to six passenger seating. My thanks for pointing that out and correcting me.
Pull back, go up, pull back more, go down. (Pilot idiom)
RIP guys!
Ed
As an airplane freak I can't help myself!
The Otter had 10 seats. It's a pretty big plane with a 600 hp R-1340. You may be thinking of the Beaver (but it had up to 8 seats also). Not that it matters, just we airplane freaks are......freaks!
Hope they had a gun with them. I would rather blow my brains out than freeze to death.
The last transmission they received from the pilot was "Hey, what's a mountain goat doing way up here in a fog bank?"
So you're a Far Side fan too.. That one has always been one of my favorites.
lmao, ok ed, hi im ed the navdoc.... yer my hero!!!!!!!!!
I don't need to reply any further than this to insult you and/or make you look like a fool. You are doing a fine job of that all by yourself. You may as well just quit while you are behind. Have a nice evening.
that was just "plane stupid" to fly into a mountainside
Feel for the family’s lonely place to die, most people cannot understand the unique challenges to flying in Antarctica. Katabatic winds blowing with no warning, mirages, ice fog, no shadows with everything white. Was there when the Air New Zealand flight slammed into Mt Erebus. That was the result of a flight programing error and ice fog, mirages hiding a mountain.
WO-80
Always nice to hear from a fellow OAE. I spent 4 years with NSFA Summer Support 1987-1991. I read the book put out by the chief investigator for the New Zealand government on the Mount Erebus crash and it was an eye opener. Have a nice evening.
That was an interesting investigation, must have been horrifying to realize you had programed a plane to fly into a mountain trying to cover up an error. Then lying, breaking in to the pilot’s home and steal information to keep the lie going, then having the whole pile collapse around you. The Tape of the Queens inquiry was really good. Still remember the days down under fondly. Take cre and have a great day
Couldn't Diane Feinstein do something about this? Maybe outlaw Airplanes!!!!!
Sorry KEM-792636. Are you making comments to convey your feelings to friends and family or do you just go from comment board trying to make the stupidest political comments of the year. Suggestion for you: if the second is your reason for being how about doing everyone a great service and disconnecting the power source to your computer as well as your internet connection and then type away with all the dribble you wish to warm your worthless heart.
A twin otter, aren't those things from back in the late 60s? Ya, put me in an old plane flying around the mountains in a frozen uninhabitable part of the world. Sure.
It didn't slam into a mountain, it was shot down by that alien space craft from " The Thing ". The government is just trying to keep it all hush hush.
I hope they will consider using a TAWS system in the future. GPS is capable of considerable accuracy regarding both location and altitude. - RC
Oops, we are going down you highly intelligent people of science. But not to worry, I can make a nice landing out here on the ice.
Ah, how long until we will be found?
Well, thats a problem... no transponder on board, only a few people in this part of the world... probably months, but not to worry again, we will probably freeze to death in the first 12 hours...
Just hit the mountain please.