1pm AEDT: 31st December 2013
Helicopter to rescue passengers from Russian vessel in Antarctica
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) was advised this morning by the Aurora Australis that the ship will not be able to reach the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.
The Aurora Australis advised RCC Australia it would be at risk of becoming beset by ice itself if it continued to make further rescue attempts.
The Aurora Australis made attempts yesterday to reach the MV Akademik Shokalskiy but was driven back into open waters due to adverse weather conditions such as winds up to 30 knots and snow showers resulting in poor visibility. The ship is currently located about 16 nautical miles east of the Russian vessel.
The helicopter on board the Chinese flagged vessel Xue Long will now be used to rescue the passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.
This rescue will be a complex operation involving a number of steps and subject to factors such as weather.
The helicopter is unable to fly in the current weather conditions, and will hold off on the rescue until conditions improve. Weather conditions are unlikely to start improving until tomorrow and decisions related to carrying out the rescue may be made at short notice.
In preparation for the rescue, an area for the helicopter to land has been marked on the ice near the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.
RCC Australia has been advised that all 52 passengers will leave the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. All 22 crew members are expected to remain with the vessel.
The passengers are expected to be rescued by helicopter in groups of 12 and will be initially transported to the Xue Long. The Aurora Australis will then use its barge to transfer all 52 passengers on board their vessel. The barge can take up to 22 people at a time.
RCC Australia continues to coordinate the incident and is in regular contact with all vessels involved and continues to monitor the situation. The vessels involved are also in close contact with each other via VHF radio.
The search and rescue operation commenced on Christmas morning AEDT after the Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in the United Kingdom received a distress message via satellite from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. The distress message and subsequent coordination of the incident was passed to RCC Australia, who is the responsible search and rescue authority for this area.
###
Source: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/31122013AkademikShokalskiyUpdate8_Media_Release.pdf
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A bunch of bloody idiots putting other people’s lives in danger.
Meanwhile the US is still going to send its Polar Star 9,300 miles south to free the Chinese and Russian ships, instead of being available for Arctic Winter rescue.
I hope that no one dies in the northern winter weather, while the Polar Star is down south rescuing Eco Tourists in the middle of their summer from stupidity and who are now endangering rescue capacity in Bering Sea for everyone else.
The definition of a boat is “a hole in the water, into which money is poured.” These guys have dug themselves one very big hole.
I hope they all send the bill for this rescue to The Guardian.
Do we think the value of the scientific effort will not be diminished by the escape of the passengers, or were the “climate science” conclusions already predetermined before the voyage even began?
So they’re abandoning one ship to the ice, tying up two icebreakers, a barge, and a helicopter for their escape. All because they believed the sea ice was going away.
Faith. Sheer, irrational faith on par with that of medieval flagellants purifying the world through their suffering. Yeah, warmism is a religion all right.
So who’s paying for the warmista folly … damned if my taxes are being used for this purpose !!!!
I still wonder who is paying for this. I hope the ship or the passengers are. BTW it was 84 F today on Paradise Island. Thank you again WUWT for making me realize it was unsustainable to continue living in Canada.
Godspeed to the rescuers and the soon-to-be-rescued with just a little more speed to the rescuers.
NZT 5.30pm Radio report
Helicopter from Xue Long will be used possibly tomorrow if weather permits to lift off the passengers and transfer to Aurora.
Situation is being upgraded to dangerous for the Akademie.
Captain and crew to remain with Akademie as long as possible.
If these idiots were working in private enterprise they would all be sacked, except for that noble exemplar of enlightened progressive thinking “The Guardian” of course.
Guardian Headline:
Warming Globe Causes Further Expansion of Antarctic Sea Ice!
The captain of that vessel was second to the Scientist and the mission at hand. One must wonder what was so important that the lives of everyone on board were jeopardized for. What was so important that it validated risking the lives of all on board? I think that since a US ice breaker has now been taken from our seas which protect our people we deserve some very hard and fast answers.
If one of our sailors or fisherman die because we diminished our rescue capacity, the Guardian and the ships owners are very much liable for the litigation and subsequent judgments from those proceedings.. Every dime should be repaid for the rescue of these eco idiots!
Warmist fossil fuel folly rescued by fossil fuel flying machine.
Lets just hope they have to spend New Years stuck on the Boat in Mother natures Ice Jail.
One good thing is the ice Break is not a nuclear one and will not have to be worried about a nuclear melt down if the ship does not survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Shokalskiy has already updated Incidents and accidents but may need some edit from WUWT.
Al Gore must be aboard. Having a boatload of Warmists Iced in on the same week that the southern hemisphere is having its longest summer day sounds like the Gore Effect to me.
Once again, reality trumps ideology.
The Polar Star is being sent to rescue Pres. Obama and the American Democrat Party who are tied at the hip to this CO2 fraud.
Nothing for Amb. Stevens and the fighting men of Bengazi but 9,000 miles to rescure members of the press an Michael Mann cult members.
The lies so huge the people who use them so small.
What can possibly go wrong?
The Chinese are retreating from the advancing ice and the distance for the helicopter to fly, in strong winds, is increasing at perhaps 10 km per day. Although they’re not likely to run out of daylight for flying, visibility has to improve and the ferrrying and (probably) refuelling of the helicopter is going to take many hours.
I trust that the helicopter pilot’s fatigue management plan is in place.
The risks of transfer to “rescue” have to be weighed up against the risk to the vessel locked up in the ice. The ice is unlikely to persist for another 8 weeks. More likely, it’ll break up in a month as Antarctic sea ice typically reaches a minimum in mid-February. Conditions are more likely to improve than to get worse over a period of a week.
All the tourists could be fluent in Russian obscenities if they hang tight for a few weeks.
I wonder if the happy idiots onboard the Frozen-In who have endangered the lives of their rescuers are aware of the welcome that awaits them upon their safe return to civilization? Scorn, derision, anger, and ridicule from AGW skeptics; and frustration, contempt and disbelief from their comrades-in-arms. Should be quite a homecoming party.
The Russians largest Ice Destroying Ship is Still in Russia, That shop can crush through 3 to 4 M of ice like a butter knife.
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=UGYU
Polarstern arrived a few days ago at Antarctica.
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=DBLK
Nathaniel B. Palmer is doing what it does best in Antarctica, destroy ice..
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=WBP3210
Reed Coray says:
December 30, 2013 at 8:57 pm
I want to be at the dock when they disembark to boo them. Especially Australian Greens MP Janet Rice.
I know the word ‘heroes’ is very much overused these days but let us not forget that the words ‘useless tossers’ are still very much available and ideal for occasions such as this
You can’t make this up.
Arctic Ocean 2007, to document global warming ended after one week due to extreme cold weather, minus 50 C day and estimated minus 75 C night
http://www.nrk.no/viten/liv-arnesen-avbrot-ekspedisjon-1.2029396
HedgingContrarianism (@JackHBarnes) says: December 30, 2013 at 8:16 pm
Meanwhile the US is still going to send its Polar Star 9,300 miles south to free the Chinese and Russian ships, instead of being available for Arctic Winter rescue.
————————————————————–
Not quite. The Polar Star is already on a scheduled deployment to the Antarctic.
http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/1994906/