Aircrew brave winter landing in Antarctica to rescue sick man

A seriously ill man has been rescued from the main US research base in Antarctica after pilots landed a plane on an icy runway in temperatures of around -30C. The rare winter landing at the McMurdo Station facility on the north Antarctic coast saw a New Zealand air force Orion plane bring in three medical staff, touching down around midday local time during a brief window of daylight and clear skies. After about 90 minutes on the ground, the turboprop craft took off for the seven-hour flight back. The man, an employee of the US company Raytheon, which provides logistical services for the US National Science Foundation at the base, was taken 2,500 miles to hospital in Christchurch, a New Zealand air force spokesman said. His name, and the nature of his condition - described as an illness rather than an injury - was not disclosed. "The medical advice is to get him out of there as soon as possible for hospital care," a spokesman for Raytheon said. An earlier rescue attempt on Sunday was abandoned after the area was enveloped in blizzards. Temperatures around the base have remained around -35C in recent days. While the southern hemisphere winter is nearing an end, September is one of the most consistently cold months in the region. The 500-plus staff at McMurdo are generally left to fend for themselves from March to October, with flights scheduled only for summer months. There have been some previous winter rescue missions, most notably in 1999 when a plane undertook a highly risky rescue flight to the even more isolated Amundsen-Scott South Pole station to evacuate a US scientist requiring treatment for breast cancer . In temperatures of around -50C, the ski-equipped US National Guard Hercules flew from McMurdo to the pole to pick up Jerri Nielsen in October 1999, the earliest ever landing in the spring season. The plane's engines were kept running throughout its stopover the prevent them freezing. Three months before, during permanent dark of mid-winter, another plane had brought medicines for Nielsen to begin treating herself after polar workers lit barrels of oil to mark the drop zone. Last September another US national suffering heart problems was evacuated from McMurdo. The McMurdo base, set up in 1955, is the hub of the US Antarctic programme, which carries out research into climate and the environment as well as geology and other areas.