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Editor's note: Darío Klein broadcast live for CNN in Spanish from Antarctica in March 2017, a trip he made on the same plane and on the same route as the flight damaged this Tuesday in Chile. This is a story that describes how that flight is and the difficulties involved.
(CNN Spanish) - Getting to Antarctica was never easy. Not by sea, or by air. Punta Arenas is the gateway to the white continent. From there ships and planes leave. It is the nearest air base. In the southern summer (December to March) the weather is more conducive, but the crossing is equally dangerous. The conditions, the pilots told us, have to be perfect: visibility usually poor, winds usually very strong and swirling, fog, clouds, ice on the track, snow. Many factors to consider.
In Punta Arenas, the Hercules is ready. Wait patient. The expeditionaries are divided into two groups. We are in the first.
At night they informed us that there was a window of opportunity the next morning. We had to be ready to leave at 6 am, but no guarantees of takeoff. In principle the prognosis was favorable, but you never know, it can change.
We were very lucky. Against the norm, the first day, the first window, we left. The wait in Punta Arenas was one day. The second group did not do so well: without an appropriate window, it arrived only on the third day.
- Flight from Darío to Klein to Antarctica from Punta Arenas in March 2017
https://cnnespanol2.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/vuelo-a-la-antacc81rtida-2017.mp4
The takeoff was normal. The Hercules reelled, while everything inside was moving and trembling, to achieve the speed needed to take off. Once in the air, hell began. The heating system started working without breaks, ahead of time. The temperature began to rise more and more. It was unbearable. The calm came for a mere second when he touched the floor or the walls of the plane that, without isolation, were the only cold, frozen. So icy it burned. But it was better than heat. I took off my shoes, and so I could barely keep some balance in body temperature. Paradoxically, the trip to the coldest continent I remember as the hottest of my life.
Concerned about the temperature, I was not even aware of the moment in which we crossed the dangerous passage of Drake, that place that joins the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic, South America and the Antarctic continent.
But once through the small window I began to see islets, icebergs and pieces of ice, everything was forgotten. It was near the impregnable and beautiful Antarctica.
Neither the successful take-off, nor the infernal journey guaranteed arrival. We still had to land. We went to the cockpit, to film the landing. The mate came and went, unconcerned, until suddenly the flight attendant stopped priming, and silence prevailed. You could see that the pilot was nervous: he could not see the mainland. As I went down, I still didn't see the track. Nothing. We all looked, as if our eyes could see what he did not see.
He must go back up, turn around, and try again.
On the second attempt, just at the last moment, the clouds ran and the track suddenly appeared. So suddenly that he landed immediately, without further ado, without preparations, without warning. A ravine, rocks, snow and track. All together and at the same time.
We had reached the white continent. We were in Antarctica. What followed was another story.
Antarctica