About 30 years ago a C-121J Super Constellation Serial number 131644 left Christchurch New Zealand on a routine flight to McMurdo Station Antarctica. The weather forecast was good as he passed the point of safe return (PSR) and elected to continue the flight to McMurdo knowing full well that his only choice now was to land on the continent. As Mother Nature often does here she changed her mind before they arrived. The weather didn’t fulfill the forecast. Heavy snow began to fall and swirling strong winds dropped forward visibility to zero. The pilots here call it “flying into the milk bottle”. Several attempts were made to land to no avail. With fuel running out the pilot lined up for one final attempt. This approach would result in contact with the ice one way or the other there was no choice, there was nowhere else to go. The landing was hard, the landing gear crumpled, the wing hit the ground and spun the airplane as propellers and engines separated from the airplane. Following an eternity of time that passed in mere minutes the aircraft slid to a stop. The evacuation was swift; there was no fire because there was nothing left on board to burn. The Connie was damaged beyond repair but everyone survived and as pilots like to say, “Any landing you can walk away from is a good one”.

The plane lay near the airport as the crash investigation was concluded and then the wreckage was towed about a mile away since everyone agreed it would not be good for flying morale to leave it in close proximity to the airport. The plane remains in that same location today and is one of the off station recreation trips we are now allowed to take.

The plane is mostly buried in drifted snow now. Holes in the fuselage have allowed drifting snow to pack the interior of the plane yet there it sits a somewhat ignominious end for a proud airplane. Today visitors scratch their initials into the airplane skin. All of us are trying to leave behind, in Antarctica, some sign that we were once here. It is an interesting bit of McMurdo history and the permanent ice airport is now named Pegasus Field in honor of this plane. My initials are now forever engraved on the only engine cowling left on the plane.

A couple of pictures in the gallery.