The wreckage of a Canadian plane which crashed in bad weather last week was located Sunday but poor visibility has made recovering those on-board unsafe, officials said.
Three Canadian crew members were on the doomed plane when it failed to reach its destination Wednesday. All the men—still unidentified—were feared dead.
Officials at the U.S. Antarctic Program and Antarctica New Zealand [ANZ] called off the search Sunday after locating the cockpit voice recorder which will provide much needed clues to the crash—described as “not survivable” by the planes operator—Calgary’s Kenn Borek Air Ltd.
The wreckage was located Saturday in a remote and mountainous area near the summit of Mt. Elizabeth on the Queen Alexandria Range. The plane is embedded in ice and snow on a mountain slope.
“A Twin Otter carrying U.S. and New Zealand search-and-rescue personnel conducted an aerial survey of the site a few hours later and determined that a landing by fixed-wing aircraft was not possible,” said ANZ.
The U.S. Antarctic Program and ANZ called off the search Sunday citing bad weather and poor visibility.
“With the advent of the Antarctic winter, and the generally poor weather conditions at the crash site, any renewed effort to recover the remains will need to wait until the next Antarctic research season.”
The next research season begins in October.
The three men were flying in support of the Italian Antarctic Program from the South Pole to an Italian research station in Terra Nova Bay when it lost communication.
Peter Paul has been a Toronto and International Headlines Examiner for Examiner.com since 2009. Connect with him on Twitter @PeterPaulX or join his Examiner Facebook fan page.
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