In 1973 an LC 130 (Hercules) crashed while landing at the South Pole.

In the final moments of the approach, the pilot was waved off.  The plane was already sinking to the skiway and unable to regain altitude.  The fuselage hit the skiway, the wing tips struck the snow, and the wings, engines, landing gear, and the tail section disintegrated (Antarctic Development Squadron Six, 1973a).  There were no injuries to the nine crewmembers and two passengers on board but the airplane was destroyed. --Antarctic Journal of the U.S., 1973.

It crashed almost right outside of the new station (the dome), but just two days before the dedication of the dome, January 1975, the plane was dragged to its current location at the end of the skiway.
 
 

When you get to the plane you have to climb down this ladder
to get to the escape hatch  which leads into the cockpit.

 

For comparison ...

On the left we have the buried Herc
at the Pole.
On the right we have a Herc on the
ground in McMurdo.
The cabin or cargo area of the buried Herc is filled with snow like the rest of the plane.  Below you see Sparkles crawling in there, and then the contrast of Daren and Darryn standing in the empty Herc.
That little bit of the doorway that we crawl through to get from the cockpit
to the cabin is the very top of the doorway you see there in the empty Herc.
In the cockpit you get some light coming through the hatch, but in the back you can't see anything without a flashlight.  It is also a great place to see some ice crystals too.

Ok, let me try to explain what you are seeing in the rest of these pictures.  Having heard that the cargo door was open at the back of the plane, in the summer season of 97-98, Dave Pernic, John Conrad, Dave Zybowski, and Tom Patly decided to try and dig out the back to make a complete opening between the cockpit entrance and the cargo door.  Although they didn't get down as far as the cargo door, they made a great beginning.

 In this picture I am coming out of the tail section entrance.  Behind me you see the tail sticking out of the snow, the only part of the plane visible above ground, and then behind that the flags that show the cockpit entrance.
As Mark slides down the entrance you can see the sled with walls that Dave built, to cart all the snow out.  Every inch of open space you see was carved out by those guys.
We're not actually in the plane here.  We are behind it.  What you see there to the right is the rudder that separated from the stabilizing bar of the tail, which you saw sticking out of the snow.
OK, were leaving the buried plane now.  What you see is that bit of the tail and then the beginning of the flags for the approach of the skiway.  To the left you can see the Dark Sector, and to the right the dome and everything else.

To see some pictures of when the plane first crashed check out:

http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy2/917bw1.html
http://www.vaq34.com/vxe6/155917.htm

While asking questions about the "buried plane" on a listserve dedicated to the South Pole, I learned that there is another buried plane around the station.  It is my understanding that on January 19, 1970 Max Conrad from the United States flew a Piper Aztec to the South Pole from McMurdo. When he attempted to takeoff and return to McMurdo he crashed and his aircraft was abandoned at the Pole.

There are also stories of a third buried plane.  This tale says that a group of tourists flew to the Pole in a gasoline powered airplane.  Once they got here there was no fuel for them so they had to abandon their plane which is supposedly still here under the snow somewhere.

Back to Antarctica Page