March 28, 2006

Funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs

Location: Latitude 64° 05' S, Longitude 55° 14' W

Air Temperature: 1.7°C

Coming home-the hard way

We are headed back to the Seymour Island region after one more frustrating day looking for leads in the main portion of the James Ross Basin. This time we are going to visit the west side of the island, potentially in an area of Cretaceous stratigraphy. We will look for fast ice to hold us still for our final drill site. --Julia

Boom! The 16X16 mess hall/living quarters shook. Paperback books flew from our hands as we ran to the windows and out the door. The runway had just broken and ridged 6 feet upwards. A new crack ran from the corner of the building to the runway, cutting us off from the ex-Air America Bell 204 helo that was our way out. Goren, the Swedish helo mechanic, grabbed the stainless 70 lb. battery kept under his bunk for warmth and ran to the helo, jumping the spreading crack. The rest of us grabbed survival bags, easy to carry food and the small hf radio that was our communication gear. Helge, the Norwegian pilot, did a runaround inspection and yanked the blade and cabin covers off as the gear was loaded.

This camp, called Fram 2, was a series of camps established by ONR (Office of Naval Research) in the late 70's-early 80's to study oceanography and acoustics in the arctic. Five of us had been waiting for 4 days as Northern Greenland then our camp was hit by storms that prevented the twin otter from coming out to pick up the last loads and escort the helo back to Nord, a base on the NE coast. The distance was about 250 miles, longer than the helo could do without refueling. Normally the procedure is to fly, land, then pump fuel from drums in the twin into the helo, then continue. Now unless we wanted to look for a better floe, we had to take ourselves and fuel partway at least. We laid out a cargo net, rolled 3 drums into it, and then put 3 drums inside with us. If you are going to carry extra fuel, you can go faster if it is inside, but we needed enough to need the sling load. Taking off from the camp we could see that the break-up was widespread, so flying back was the only good option. The problem was that Nord currently was in a whiteout, winds 35-55 knots, and indeterminate ceiling as well. Our weather was good to start, but by the time we stopped to refuel, it was overcast with blowing snow. We pumped the sling fuel, and got rid of 2 of the inside drums, keeping one just in case. This was before the days of GPS, and our nav source was a temperamental unit using the Navy OMEGA system. It was good to several miles and sometimes as good as 1/2 mile. So, it still was going to be a good trial to find the base and land in zero/zero conditions.

The straight-line path to the base passed over some 3000 foot hills. We needed to fly over them as going around the coast was not possible with the fuel we still had. . As we approached the coast, the dimming sunlight was obscured by clouds and blowing snow. As the visibility came down, the pilot dropped the speed until we were flying maybe 40 knots, just picking our way forward, now being buffeted by gusts. Nothing was being said, as he worked in a whiteout to keep us moving forward on instruments while the world swirled outside. The radar altimeter came alive showing we were getting closer to the ground. For minutes we had been watching the fuel gauge move down and it was becoming pretty plain that we had to set down and fuel. The ground kept steadily rising, and Helge kept decreasing the speed until we were down at 15 or 20,the limits of flying like an airplane or hovering forward- the main difference in hovering is that there is no way to tell forward from sideways without outside references, something that wasn't there. In short, not a good situation. The landing light was pointed down to try and pick out any contrast and we were down to 50 feet over some ground .He hovered down until the altimeter bottomed out at 20 feet, the minimum reading. At this point we were bouncing in strong winds and Helge was having a very hard time holding the hover. He said, “Someone needs to go and give me ground reference to land” I was sitting on the right side door seat and decided to go. I slid open the door a few feet, unbuckled the harness and put my feet on the skids. Taking off my headset, I jumped. A short fall, then I was tumbling head over heels down a steep slope. I finally stopped and crawled my way back to the noise and light of the helo. Standing in front provided the visual reference that he needed for a landing. We had to wait there for 3 hours while the snow died down, then fueled again and flew to the base where the only thing visible was the 200 foot radio towers. Having perfected our method by now, we did an approach to where the ramp must be and landed, luckily not hitting the two aircraft that were parked there. Seemed better telling it in the mess hall than real life somehow.

--Jay Ardai

Photo by Denise Kulhanek.

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