Unexpected visit to Russian station

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32802, 30 December 1971, Page 10

Unexpected visit to Russian station

Six British scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute spent an unexpected eight hours last Wednesday at Vostok Station in the Antarctic, where they sampled Russian hospitality and exchanged scientific table talk.

The six were aboard a United States Navy skiequipped Hercules which had been specially equipped to enable them to carry out an airborne radio ice-thickness survey in Wilkes Land. They were flying back to McMurdo Station when a re-

i port was received that because of bad weather in the McMurdo region the Hercules should proceed to the Amund-sen-Scott South Pole Station. The Hercules was 70 miles from Vostok Station when information was received that the Pole Station was closed by bad weather. Accordingly permission was sought from the Russians for the aircraft to divert to Vostok. The ice-sensing programme is now about half way through, with 150 of the planned 300 flying hours completed. The same day, another Hercules on a flight from Siple Station, in Ellsworth Land, to McMurdo Station was, because of the weather at McMurdo Station, diverted to Brockton Station, a small weather - recording outpost on the Ross Ice Shelf. There, because of the Hercules crew, the station’s population was doubled and remained so for five days until another Hercules was able to fly to Brockton with extra fuel, to enable the first aircraft to get out.