An interesting story of an Antarctic rescue in 1979
Feb 10, 2023 0:39:45 GMT 12
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 10, 2023 0:39:45 GMT 12
Please don’t die on us—pilot’s prayer on 30-hour rescue marathon
By GERARD HALCROW
"Please don’t die on us” — for almost 30 hours a silent prayer ran through the mind of an American Navy pilot, Commander W. A. ("Willie”) Morgan, as he flew a critically injured Russian to Dunedin from the site of an aircraft crash in Antarctica.
Commander Morgan, a veteran pilot of the Vietnam War, had just completed a 24-hour flying mission when he got the mercy call to fly from McMurdo Station across Antarctica to a crashed IL14 aircraft at the Russian base of Molodezhnaya. He spent the next 29 hours in a United States Hercules flying across Antarctica twice and then on to Dunedin to bring five injured Russians to hospital. Three had already died in the crash.
“Four of the Russians looked as if they would make it okay, but one man was pretty badly cut up. His face and head was a bit of a mess,” Commander Morgan said in Christchurch last evening. “I kept wondering if he was going to be okay. That was the worst part of the flight, hoping that he wouldn’t die on us.”
Commander Morgan said he believed 14 Russians had been aboard the aircraft when it crashed. “From what I can gather they lost the left engine and came down pretty hard.”
He had seen the crashed Russian aircraft. Although the under-carriage had been “wiped out” the plane had not caught fire.
“When we arrived, the Russian camp commander came out and thanked us personally for coming. They were really glad to see us,” Captain Morgan said.
Although the Hercules was flown by three separate crews on its 11,400 km mercy dash, Commander Morgan, who is 42, chose to remain in charge of the plane. “I just wanted to see this thing out,” he said. The flight was the first mercy dash Commander Morgan had made at Antarctica; this is his third season as a pilot with the United States Navy Antarctic support force.
A Russian doctor went with the five injured. As well as the nine crew, the Hercules carried a United States doctor and two medics.
When the Hercules arrived back at McMurdo with the injured Russians, the co-pilots, Lieutenant-Commander Frank Piazza and Lieutenant Junior Grade David Boice, came aboard for the last leg of the trip to Dunedin.
“It only took something like 35 minutes to refuel the plane at McMurdo and then we hot-footed it,” Lieutenant Commander Piazza said.
The injured Russians were kept on board as the plane was refuelled and a new crew prepared for the flight to Dunedin.
A Russian scientist also made the journey to act as interpreter.
“They were talking among themselves a lot, but didn’t say much to us,” said Lieutenant-Commander Piazza.
Commander Morgan, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, has been in the United States Navy for 25 years. He became a pilot in 1959. The mercy flight was also the first that Lieutenant-Commander Piazza, aged 32, had made. “We had hoped for tail winds, but we didn’t get many. About half-way across to New Zealand we hit a head wind which put our arrival time back about half an hour,” he said.
The Hercules did not encounter any snowstorms on the flight. The trip from McMurdo Sound to Dunedin took about 7½ hours. “When we got to Dunedin we cut the engines quickly so that the noise and fumes wouldn’t bother the injured,” said Lieutenant-Commander Piazza.
Although Commander Morgan had been on duty for 53 hours he did not bother with sleep when he arrived at the United States Navy Headquarters at Christchurch Airport. Instead, he had a quick change of clothes and went for a quiet beer at the officers’ club.
The Press Association reports that a United States military spokesman said last evening that the crash was believed to have been caused by the failure of the port engine of the Ilyushin-14 on take-off from the Molodezhnaya base.
The base is 2900 km from the American base at McMurdo Sound. The crash killed the pilot, the co-pilot and a passenger. Their names were not available late last evening. At Dunedin, the seriously injured man, Garib Uvikaev, was carried off the aircraft on a stretcher to an ambulance. He was in a coma and had been put on an intravenous drip and oxygen.
His condition in hospital late last evening was reported as serious. The other Russian to be carried from the plane to the waiting ambulances was Alexander Kostikov.
One of the injured men who walked from the aircraft with the assistance of an American medic was Alexander Tkachev. The names of the other two injured Russians were not immediately available. They are not thought to be seriously hurt.
The First Secretary at the Russian Embassy in Wellington, Mr Anatoly Botov, flew to Dunedin yesterday afternoon to meet the American aircraft on its arrival.
He said that the response of the Americans to the Russians’ call for help was “just the tradition of comradeship between the expeditions of America, Britain, New Zealand, and Australia.”
Mr Botov said that the Russians did not have any aircraft with the range needed to fly the men to a hospital from the Molodezhnaya base. The Hercules returned briefly to Dunedin Airport yesterday afternoon, 20 minutes after take-off, to deliver a jacket and spectacles.
The items, the spectacles owned by the Russian doctor travelling with the patients and the jacket to one of the injured men, had been left on board.
THE PRESS, 6 JANUARY 1979
By GERARD HALCROW
"Please don’t die on us” — for almost 30 hours a silent prayer ran through the mind of an American Navy pilot, Commander W. A. ("Willie”) Morgan, as he flew a critically injured Russian to Dunedin from the site of an aircraft crash in Antarctica.
Commander Morgan, a veteran pilot of the Vietnam War, had just completed a 24-hour flying mission when he got the mercy call to fly from McMurdo Station across Antarctica to a crashed IL14 aircraft at the Russian base of Molodezhnaya. He spent the next 29 hours in a United States Hercules flying across Antarctica twice and then on to Dunedin to bring five injured Russians to hospital. Three had already died in the crash.
“Four of the Russians looked as if they would make it okay, but one man was pretty badly cut up. His face and head was a bit of a mess,” Commander Morgan said in Christchurch last evening. “I kept wondering if he was going to be okay. That was the worst part of the flight, hoping that he wouldn’t die on us.”
Commander Morgan said he believed 14 Russians had been aboard the aircraft when it crashed. “From what I can gather they lost the left engine and came down pretty hard.”
He had seen the crashed Russian aircraft. Although the under-carriage had been “wiped out” the plane had not caught fire.
“When we arrived, the Russian camp commander came out and thanked us personally for coming. They were really glad to see us,” Captain Morgan said.
Although the Hercules was flown by three separate crews on its 11,400 km mercy dash, Commander Morgan, who is 42, chose to remain in charge of the plane. “I just wanted to see this thing out,” he said. The flight was the first mercy dash Commander Morgan had made at Antarctica; this is his third season as a pilot with the United States Navy Antarctic support force.
A Russian doctor went with the five injured. As well as the nine crew, the Hercules carried a United States doctor and two medics.
When the Hercules arrived back at McMurdo with the injured Russians, the co-pilots, Lieutenant-Commander Frank Piazza and Lieutenant Junior Grade David Boice, came aboard for the last leg of the trip to Dunedin.
“It only took something like 35 minutes to refuel the plane at McMurdo and then we hot-footed it,” Lieutenant Commander Piazza said.
The injured Russians were kept on board as the plane was refuelled and a new crew prepared for the flight to Dunedin.
A Russian scientist also made the journey to act as interpreter.
“They were talking among themselves a lot, but didn’t say much to us,” said Lieutenant-Commander Piazza.
Commander Morgan, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, has been in the United States Navy for 25 years. He became a pilot in 1959. The mercy flight was also the first that Lieutenant-Commander Piazza, aged 32, had made. “We had hoped for tail winds, but we didn’t get many. About half-way across to New Zealand we hit a head wind which put our arrival time back about half an hour,” he said.
The Hercules did not encounter any snowstorms on the flight. The trip from McMurdo Sound to Dunedin took about 7½ hours. “When we got to Dunedin we cut the engines quickly so that the noise and fumes wouldn’t bother the injured,” said Lieutenant-Commander Piazza.
Although Commander Morgan had been on duty for 53 hours he did not bother with sleep when he arrived at the United States Navy Headquarters at Christchurch Airport. Instead, he had a quick change of clothes and went for a quiet beer at the officers’ club.
The Press Association reports that a United States military spokesman said last evening that the crash was believed to have been caused by the failure of the port engine of the Ilyushin-14 on take-off from the Molodezhnaya base.
The base is 2900 km from the American base at McMurdo Sound. The crash killed the pilot, the co-pilot and a passenger. Their names were not available late last evening. At Dunedin, the seriously injured man, Garib Uvikaev, was carried off the aircraft on a stretcher to an ambulance. He was in a coma and had been put on an intravenous drip and oxygen.
His condition in hospital late last evening was reported as serious. The other Russian to be carried from the plane to the waiting ambulances was Alexander Kostikov.
One of the injured men who walked from the aircraft with the assistance of an American medic was Alexander Tkachev. The names of the other two injured Russians were not immediately available. They are not thought to be seriously hurt.
The First Secretary at the Russian Embassy in Wellington, Mr Anatoly Botov, flew to Dunedin yesterday afternoon to meet the American aircraft on its arrival.
He said that the response of the Americans to the Russians’ call for help was “just the tradition of comradeship between the expeditions of America, Britain, New Zealand, and Australia.”
Mr Botov said that the Russians did not have any aircraft with the range needed to fly the men to a hospital from the Molodezhnaya base. The Hercules returned briefly to Dunedin Airport yesterday afternoon, 20 minutes after take-off, to deliver a jacket and spectacles.
The items, the spectacles owned by the Russian doctor travelling with the patients and the jacket to one of the injured men, had been left on board.
THE PRESS, 6 JANUARY 1979
