This enabled him to best position the aircraft for sightseeing, as pilots on previous flights had done, though for some reason neither Scott Base nor sprawling McMurdo Station at the tip of Hut Point Peninsula was yet visible. They were still on the programmed flight path that took them down the centre of the 70 km-wide sound.Īt the invitation of McMurdo Station Air Traffic Control, Collins flew the DC10 visually at an altitude of 1500 feet. Mulgrew pointed out the features on the map that lay across Collins’ knee. Out the opposite window lay what he took to be the edge of Ross Island.
To the right, he could make out the Taylor Valley, one of the glacier channels that bisect the long arc of the Transantarctic Mountains. It was 0043:20 GMT. Mulgrew scanned the landscape to left and right, eager to interpret the continent for the benefit of those on board. They had some 54 km to run until the Dailey Islands turn-point. Ahead, the wide expanse of McMurdo Sound unfolded into clear, white distance under the overcast.
Steadying himself against the aircraft’s 25-degree tilt with practised ease, Mulgrew acknowledged the rest of the flight crew and installed himself in the jump-seat behind the pilot. Mt Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano, casts its long shadow over Ross Island and McMurdo Sound.Ĭaptain Jim Collins eased the aircraft into a final roll to starboard as Mulgrew entered, bringing it onto a southerly heading once more. Now he found himself a willing commentator on these tourist flights to the ice and the time had come to earn his keep. Afterwards, chaffing at business life and unable to settle, he had taken a gaff-rigged 40-footer around Cape Horn and was nursing dreams of an attempt on the Northwest Passage. He was also a distinguished Antarctican in his own right, having accompanied Hillary on that wild overland dash to the South Pole in ’58. A climbing buddy of Ed Hillary, Mulgrew had lost his legs to pulmonary thrombosis and frostbite in the Himalayas, and now got about on prosthetics. Sensing the time was right, John Mulgrew excused himself and made his way forward to the flight deck.
EREBUS MOUNTAIN LAKE GEORGE WINDOWS
The jet, which had been gradually shedding height, rounded out of a leisurely turn and levelled, bringing the starboard windows into play once more. What a lark to be cruising in shirt sleeves more than a mile above the frozen wastes, and about to glimpse the dazzling landscape through which Scott and Shackleton once trod as they courted fame and danger. For crew and paying. guests alike, it was special. More an airborne party than a commercial flight, TE901 had none of the sober formality and numbing routine of scheduled travel. Air New Zealand cabin crew mingled with the day trippers, recharging glasses, dispensing food. Others cradled cameras or leaned across seats, pressing faces against windows to better see the intricate lattice of sea and ice that stretched away below the aircraft towards the horizon. One was caught on film as he relaxed in the aisle, glass to lips. Polar sun flooded the DC10’s cabin, haloing passengers in ethereal light.
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