Third Hercules rescue plan

Press, 18 February 1977, Page 4

Third Hercules rescue plan

The United States Navy, in collaboration with the French Antarctic research team, may try to recover the skiequipped Hercules which crashed in Wilkes Land in December, 1971. The commander of the United States Navy Antarctic Support Force (Captain C. H. Nordhill) said in Christchurch yesterday that getting the plane out would be considerably more difficult than the recovery of the two Hercules from the Dome C site, 1150 km from McMurdo Station. The area is too rough for a landing as it is. The French at Dumont D’Urville Station propose to prepare a ski-way. “Unofficially the French have agreed to do this but the matter will be discussed

I further in Washington while two members of the French polar expedition are in the United States,” said Captain Nordhill. Captain Nordhill is back in the city at the end of one of the best summer support seasons for several years. “All the parties went out into the field on time or ahead of time. Also it has been a safe season,” he said. The unusual thickness of the sea ice this season made it very difficult for the two ice-breakers to cut a channel to Winter Quarters Bav for the supply ship Bland and the oil tanker Maumee. Both had to have ice-brea-ker escorts because even when it was cut the ice did not float away north. These conditions would have been a suitable testing

experience for the new Coast Guard ice-breaker Polar Star if only it had been able to come south, said Captain Nordhill. It might be ready for next summer, he added. Among next summer’s projects will be the construction of a research camp in Marie Byrd Land from where geological studies will be made. The camp will be taken out by Hercules, which will also fly out a helicopter or two for close support work by the scientists who will be based there. A number of small camps will be established along the Trans Antarctic Range for field parties. The first supply of equipment for the rebuilding of the Williams Field Camp, six miles from McMurdo Station,

will be taken to the ice next summer. A fresh field on the sea ice will be prepared next season. The Navy is looking into acquiring a machine which will compact rubbish at McMurdo Station. In that form it could be dumped at sea. Next summer the last of the soil from around the former nuclear power plant will be removed and taken by ship back to the United States. Of the recent Air New Zealand sight-seeing flight, Captain Nordhill said he did not feel that the time was right for Antarctic tourists — even by air. “There are simply no means of getting people beyond McMurdo Sound and the fringe of the continent in order to see some of the really beautiful sights,” he said.