Arctic ordeal
After plane crashed and sank, two men worked hard to keep warm before rescue by shrimping vessel
Globe and Mail
December 9, 2008 at 4:54 AM EST
The Cessna Skymaster plane was flying through the cold night sky over the Arctic when first one engine failed, and moments later, the other.engine as well.
The pilot issued a mayday call and began scouring the Hudson Strait for a safe place to land. He was able to glide the crippled plane to a controlled crash landing on an ice floe seven kilometres off the southern coast of Baffin Island.
He touched down safely, but the 10-centimetre-thick ice gave way almost immediately under the weight of the plane. The pilot and the other man on board were just able to scramble out the window before the plane vanished into the freezing waters, taking their life raft with it.
The men were wearing insulated survival suits, but had nothing with which to make a fire. With the temperature dropping as night fell Sunday, they knew they had to stay warm to survive, so they started walking. They were still pacing the ice floe nearly 18 hours later when a shrimping vessel hove into view yesterday morning and rescued them.
"They were very healthy," said Bo Mortensen, captain of the Atlantic Enterprise, which had been about 180 nautical miles away when it received the mayday call Sunday night. "One of them was frostbitten on his feet. They were smiling and crying."
The men, identified as Australian Oliver Edwards and Dane Troels Hansen, both now living in Sweden, were later picked up by a Canadian Forces Cormorant helicopter and flown to Iqaluit, 150 kilometres to the north. They spent the night at Qikiqtani General Hospital, where spokeswoman Yasmina Pepa said they were "alive and in good condition."