Sick U.S. Workers Evacuated From Antarctica

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A U.S. Air Force medevac plane carrying three sick workers from an American research station on the Antarctic coast landed in New Zealand Saturday, officials said.

Flights to Antarctica are usually suspended around the end of February and don’t resume again until October, after the Southern Hemisphere winter, which makes it too cold to fly.

Authorities made an exception Saturday to rescue three sick staffers at McMurdo station run by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

An air traffic control official in the southern city of Christchurch said the U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter jet touched down there safely just before 7 p.m.

The Washington-based NSF later confirmed the flight’s success and said three people were rescued. It was not clear if the workers were to be treated initially in New Zealand or immediately flown to the United States.

A brief statement from the NSF gave no details of the patients or their conditions. Earlier, an official at McMurdo had told The Associated Press only one patient was to be rescued.

Earlier Saturday, the plane skidded to a halt on an ice runway at McMurdo and quickly took off again to complete a 4,800-mile round trip from Christchurch.

Dan Mathers, manager of New Zealand’s nearby Scott Base, said in a telephone interview that the plane flew in and out of Antarctic in clear conditions and a temperature of minus 13 degrees.

The NSF said that while there is a doctor at the base, which houses 191 people, it would be safest to take the patients to New Zealand and then the United States for treatment.

The C-141 Starlifter jet, based at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, Calif., flew across the South Pacific before setting off from Christchurch, a major gateway to the Antarctic.