A Portuguese airline, HiFly, made history by making the first landing of the Airbus A340 quad jet on the frozen continent of Antarctica.
Led by Captain Carlos Mirpuri, the A340-300, with registration number 9H-SOL, landed on the icy runway at Wolfs Fang, in Antarctica, after taking off from Cape Town, South Africa. The 2,500 nautical miles (4,630 km) flight ) was completed in 5 hours and 10 minutes, taking only 23 people on board, the majority being tourists who took the first available flight in the exploration season.
The Wolfs Fang runway does not have an aircraft refueling station and, because of that, the A340 had to take the fuel to return, totaling 77 tons of aviation kerosene.
Landing had its risks, as the airport is category C, which only allows experienced pilots who have undergone specific training in the simulator to operate. In his notes published on the Airbus website, the captain also points out that, except for this first A340 flight, all crew members must have observed the cockpit operation before taking action.
Mirpuri also points out that a glacial track is difficult. “The runway having a length of 3,000 meters, landing and stopping such a heavy A340 would not be a problem. At least not on paper, as an A340 has never landed on a glacial runway before.”
No airline in the world had flown this model of aircraft to Antarctica until today, this being a historic achievement by HiFly, which only spent three hours on the snow-covered ground with the quad, just enough to unload the aircraft and prepare it there. for the flight back to South Africa, which lasted 5 hours and 20 minutes.
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