Monday night I was a part of a group of 21 people that
headed out to the site of the plane nicknamed “Pegasus” that crashed about 40
years ago. We had to bring or wear all of our extreme cold weather gear and
were loaded up into a vehicle called a Delta for the hour long trip out to the
site. Vehicles here are only allowed to travel at a speed of 20 mph because of
the temperature and “road” conditions. That translates into an hour to go about
17 miles via gravel road and permanent sea ice road. It was very bumpy but we
had a good time. Once we arrived we were told the ground rules and set free to
roam around and on the plane. Yes, I said on the plane. It’s mostly covered
with ice and snow except the tail and about 2 feet of the top of the plane.
There were two shovels that came with us that were used to attempt to dig out
the words written on the side of the plane that read United States Navy. They
didn’t get to far. 40 years of snow and ice is hard to move. We took lots of
pictures and explored the plane thoroughly as best we could. No one died in the
crash incase you were wondering. We then loaded up and headed back to McMurdo. At
about 12:30am we arrived back at the lovely blue building, Building 155, that I
call home.
Some info about the crash…
"In
October 1970, a C-121J super constellation called "Pegasus" crashed
into an airfield near Mcmurdo. A storm had blown in from the south, as
they're known to do, and completely eliminated visibility. The flight
had already passed PSR (point of safe return), therefore lacked fuel to
turn around and was left with no choice but to 'put the girl down.'
After circling the runway for hours without getting a visual, they
caught a quick glimpse on the last pass and set 'er down, sliding into a
heavy snowdrift caused by the storm and spinned the connie around
while flinging off a couple propellers, a couple engines, and the
entire right wing. Nobody died."
Pictures from Facebook…
