Chilean military plane with 38 vanishes on Antarctica mission
- Contact with aircraft, which was carrying out logistical support tasks, was lost 18 minutes after it took off on Monday
Chile’s air force has lost radio contact with a transport plane carrying 38 people on a flight to the country’s base in Antarctica.
It said the military had declared an alert and activated a search and rescue team.
The C-130 Hercules carried 17 crew members and 21 passengers. The personnel were to check on a floating fuel supply line and other equipment at the Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva Base, Chile’s most important Antarctic base.
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The plane took off at 4:55pm on Monday from the southern city of Punta Arenas, which is more than 3,000km from the capital of Santiago. Contact was lost at 6:13pm, the statement said.
President Sebastian Pinera said via Twitter that he was with his defence and interior ministers at the air force headquarters monitoring developments.
General Eduardo Mosqueira of the Fourth Air Brigade told local media that a search was underway and a ship was in the area where the plane should have been when contact was lost.
Mosqueira said the aircraft would have been about halfway to the Antarctic base when it lost contact. No emergency signals had been activated, he said.
Drake’s Passage, where the plane was missing, is infamous for severe weather conditions, including freezing temperatures and ferocious storms. But the air force said that the weather was good when the plane began its flight, or the mission would not have been carried out.
Mosqueira said the plane, whose pilot had extensive experience, had been expected to return Monday night.
The incident is the latest drama in a country where Chileans have for nearly two months protested social and economic inequality, as well as an entrenched political elite.
The crisis and its violent demonstrations have led to 26 deaths and more than 12,000 injuries, according to the Organisation of American States.
