Polar First expedition reaches South Pole
Record-breaking helicopter pilots Jennifer Murray and Colin Bodill have reached the South Pole. Reaching the Pole at 5am (GMT) on Sunday 7th January, this marks a significant milestone in their attempt to set a new world record for flying around the world via the South and North Poles in a Bell Helicopter 407.
This is the pilots’ second attempt to set this record, their first attempt in 2003 ending in near disaster when on December 20th, 58 days into their journey and two days after reaching the South Pole, they crashed in whiteout conditions on the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Both pilots sustained serious injuries and their crash was reported by media around the globe. Many might have called it a day after such an experience but Jennifer, 66 years old, and Colin, 55 years old, were determined to re-attempt the challenge.
Talking via satellite phone from the South Pole, Jennifer says, "It’s a terrific feeling to have made it to the South Pole. Bad weather conditions have hampered our progress along the way but we had a clear weather window when leaving Fowler and flying the 1200 miles to the Pole in one go has put us very much back on schedule.”
“With memories of our last time in Antarctica being overshadowed by the crash, it’s been great to come back and lay a few ghosts to rest. Obviously the next milestone is to get out of Antarctica and back across the Drake Passage safely. I’ll certainly be feeling relieved once we’re back in Ushuaia, but there’ll be no time for celebration as we’re only half way through and have to push on northward to the North Pole. Having got this far, morale is high - although we’re obviously feeling tired - but we know we’ve got a long way to go yet and a lot more challenges ahead of us. Our Bell 407 is performing wonderfully and we have great confidence every time we start it up and fly away,” Jennifer concludes.
The pilots have completed just over 9,000 nautical miles of their journey and have made 33 scheduled landings. They have over 26,000 nautical miles to go and 94 more scheduled landings to make. They started the attempt on 5th December 2006, taking off from Bell Helicopter at Fort Worth, Dallas, USA.
Jennifer Murray learnt to fly helicopters at the age of 54.
Jennifer and Colin are also working in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with IBG, to give a core group of 30 schools along the route and children world wide the opportunity to take part in a global environmental, online project. The pilots have visited many of the schools taking part in the project during their trip south, and will be visiting more as they fly north.
Jennifer has written a book, ‘Broken Journey’, about her 2003 record attempt and copies can be bought at
www.polarfirst.com.
Watch the pilots journey around the world at
www.polarfirst.com.