Conquering Dazzling Ice Runway, Airbus A340 Lands For The First Time In Antarctica

JAKARTA - For the first time in history, an Airbus A340 successfully landed and then took off in Antarctica.

Hi Fly, a boutique airline company, is behind the flight. Companies that specialize in wet charter flights, which means they charter the aircraft and crew and are responsible for handling insurance, maintenance and other logistics.

An Airbus A340 aircraft with serial number Hi Fly 801 takes off from Cape Town, South Africa on Tuesday, November 2.

The plane is commissioned by Wolf's Fang, a new high-end adventure camp on the world's southernmost continent, to bring much-needed supplies to the resort. Wolf's Fang is a new project from high-end Antarctic tourism company White Desert.

The crew of the Hi Fly 801 (and its return trip to Cape Town, the Hi Fly 802) is led by Captain Carlos Mirpuri, who is also vice president of Hi Fly.

Each flight takes between five and five and a half hours, with the team spending less than three hours on land in Antarctica, which covers 2.500 nautical miles.

The blue ice runway on the Wolf's Fang property is designated a C Level airport, although it's not technically an airport. That means only highly specialized and experienced pilots can fly there due to the challenging conditions.

"The colder the better," Mipuri explained in his captain's log, citing CNN November 24

"Grooving is carved along the runway with special equipment, and after cleaning and carving we get adequate braking coefficients; the runway is 3,000 meters long, landing and stopping such a heavy A340 at the airfield will not be a problem," he explained.

Although blue ice is very beautiful, it can also be worrying for pilots because of the glare.

"Reflection is excellent, and the right goggles help you adjust your eyes between the exterior and the instrumentation. Non-flying pilots have an important role in making regular plus extra callouts, especially in the late stages of the approach," says Mipuri.

The first recorded flight to Antarctica was the Lockheed Vega 1 monoplane in 1928, piloted by George Hubert Wilkins, an Australian military pilot, and explorer.

He took off from Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands. The project was funded by William Randolph Hearst, a wealthy American publishing tycoon.

Short exploratory flights like this one are how scientists and mapmakers get important information about Antarctica's topography.

As of today, there are no airports on the White Continent, but there are 50 runways for takeoff and landing.

Australia and South Africa are just two of the global powers with an interest in Antarctica.

Just to note, as aviation website Simple Flying notes, Russia's Antarctic research station organized half a dozen test flights to the 3.000-foot-high blue ice runway between 2019 and 2020. Those were also carried out by wide-body aircraft.

Since most people travel to the White Continent via ships, seeing the A340 land on an ice runway is certainly dramatic, and means there will likely be many more such landings in the future.