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Plane lands at South Pole in rare, risky effort to rescue sick worker
nola.com ^ | 21 June 2016 | Sarah Kaplan

Posted on 06/21/2016 8:05:48 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT

Twin Otters are certified to fly at temperatures as low as minus-103 degrees...

during the mission to evacuate Shemenski in 2001...

But as they started up the engines, the crew realized they couldn't take off. The Twin Otter's skis had stuck to the ice beneath them, and the grease on the wing flaps had frozen them in the fully extended position. While the station workers hacked at the ice on the skis, the plane's mechanic jury-rigged the controls to allow it to take off. It was one of the longest, slowest take-offs any of them had ever attempted, but eventually, they were in the air.

(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: antarctic
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Cold and dark.
1 posted on 06/21/2016 8:05:48 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
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To: DUMBGRUNT

They should have just taken him into that giant hole at the pole that leads to the advanced hollow-earth civilisation. Oh wait, that’s the NORTH pole. My bad, wishing them a successful journey.


2 posted on 06/21/2016 8:09:54 PM PDT by thatdewd (I'm tired of watching stupid people do stupid things stupidly.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Leave my ex fiance out of this.


3 posted on 06/21/2016 8:11:06 PM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

What a risky mission . Glad they have had success.

And that’s dedication, to winter over at the South Pole. I’ve heard that they do psychological screenings of people who want to go and do work in Antarctica. The South Pole station is more isolated than facilities along the coast. But wherever they are in Antarctica, the long dark cold winter can get to people, and cause mental health and behavior problems.


4 posted on 06/21/2016 8:14:42 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: thatdewd

I thought the South Pole is where the secret base of disgruntled Nazis is.


5 posted on 06/21/2016 8:15:57 PM PDT by T-Bone Texan (Don't be a lone wolf. Form up small leaderlesss cells ASAP !)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Doesn’t sound like it’s getting warmer in the Anarctic to me. And it seems as though these daring rescues occur every year. Don’t these people take physicals before going to the end of the earth to work? If they weren’t there, though, we wouldn’t get the umpteenth warning that the earth is warming, and we are all going to die. They’re right about the last part.


6 posted on 06/21/2016 8:18:31 PM PDT by txrefugee
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To: T-Bone Texan

Lol! Let’s just hope their plans for that army of zombies doesn’t work out.


7 posted on 06/21/2016 8:20:23 PM PDT by thatdewd (I'm tired of watching stupid people do stupid things stupidly.)
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To: txrefugee

They oversee long-term monitoring of the atmosphere and climate change....
116 degrees in the San Fernando valley on Monday.
-100 degrees at the south pole. People at both extremes somehow surviving.
Now just factor in all the hills and valleys and ocean and all the atmosphere eddies and clouds moving around the Earth and the sun’s output beating down and give me a accurate weather report to a degree. The UN and Al Gore can. They just make it up.


8 posted on 06/21/2016 8:32:05 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: thatdewd

9 posted on 06/21/2016 8:57:17 PM PDT by null and void (Hillary Milhouse Clinton: I'm not a c-c-c-crook! Crook! Yeah, that's the c-word I was looking for!)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

With globull warming it can’t have been all that bad.


10 posted on 06/21/2016 9:18:01 PM PDT by Gamecock ( Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...Matthew 10:28)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

This time of year? Fly to the pole and return on Winter Solstice (southern hemisphere)? Incredible.


11 posted on 06/21/2016 9:28:39 PM PDT by katana
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To: dp0622

Yeah... well I was Married to her for 25 years and it was colder darker and NO MANS LAND ... No rescue attempts were ever made for me ...

Take 125% of what you have and throw it on a fire, watch it burn, pledge another 125% plus the crap you just burned that must be returned even though you were ordered to burn it.

There is NO WAY OUT, it is like OBAMA CARE

C 130’s with ski’s sheesh that is all it takes to solve your little problem? ...

What a bunch of Pikers down there in Antarctica... suffer in silence like the rest of us... We don’t get Air Support, we just call out Fire Missions in our sleep and wake up each morning to another failed mission
(bright side No Collateral Damage)


12 posted on 06/21/2016 10:01:47 PM PDT by TexasTransplant (Idiocracy used to just be a Movie... Live every day as your last...one day you will be right)
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To: TexasTransplant

ROFL!!!!


13 posted on 06/21/2016 10:21:35 PM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Twin Otters are not “tiny”.

Taxi the skis onto tarps or plywood and they won’t stick to the ice.

Point a strong spotlight straight up as a beacon.


The patient was evacuated due to heatstroke from global warming.


What a great name for a transgender bar————SHEMENSKI’S


14 posted on 06/21/2016 11:38:03 PM PDT by Rockpile (GOP legislators-----caviar eating surrender monkeys.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Wow .... kudos to those crews.


15 posted on 06/21/2016 11:54:16 PM PDT by Squantos ( Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet ...)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

To reporter:

Not jury-rigged. Jerry-rigged.

God, we have total idiots writing stories today. Zero copy editors anymore.


16 posted on 06/22/2016 12:52:29 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

At least they did not say it was African engineered.


17 posted on 06/22/2016 2:19:23 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie (Apparently, most people are fine with what Obama is doing, while he ignores our problems.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I would do stuff and call it “Ni****-rigged”.

“So how come you call it that?”

“’Cuz it didn’t work!”


18 posted on 06/22/2016 2:29:05 AM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts It is happening again.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Jury-rigged is correct, according to two dictionaries.


19 posted on 06/22/2016 3:13:55 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: DUMBGRUNT

“Between 30,000 and 40,000 feet (9,000 and 12,000 m), the cruising altitude of most jet aircraft, air temperature ranges from -40° F to -70° F (-40° C to -57° C)” - www.britannica.com/science/temperature-stress

Right now thousands of airliners are flying at these temperatures and then landing at night.

How is a south pole flight in the winter any colder or darker than this? A clickbait story?


20 posted on 06/22/2016 3:26:17 AM PDT by r_barton (GO TRUMP!!!)
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