UPDATE: So much for that…
Sea ice conditions are now likely to delay today’s planned rescue of passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. http://t.co/snGYZnqmNM
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) January 2, 2014
And now it is apparently on again
AMSA is awaiting confirmation that the Antarctica rescue operation has begun.
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) January 2, 2014
See video below.
Aurora Australis has advised AMSA that the 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy are now on board.
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) January 2, 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_13rQBXKa0A
7.30am AEDT: 2nd January 2014
Rescue operations likely to commence shortly in Antarctica
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) was advised this morning by the MV Akademik Shokalskiy that weather conditions have improved in the area and rescue operations are likely to commence shortly by helicopter.
Wind in the area is now down to 10 knots and visibility has improved. Weather conditions are expected to remain favourable over the next 36 hours.
The helicopter on board the Chinese flagged vessel Xue Long will 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.
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 will be rescued by helicopter in groups of 12 and will be initially transported to the Xue Long. The rescue is expected to be undertaken in a total of seven flights. The first five flights will rescue passengers and the remaining two flights will transfer luggage and equipment.
Each return flight is expected to take about 45 minutes. The journey will cover a distance of about 12 nautical miles between the MV Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long. The helicopter component of the rescue operation is expected to take at least five hours dependent on weather conditions.
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. The journey between the Xue Long and the Aurora Australis is a distance of about two nautical miles.
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.
Media Note: Media are advised to keep an eye on AMSA’s Twitter feed @AMSA_News for the latest information relating to this rescue. Details for facilitating audio grabs and vision will be issued in due course.
Click to access 02012014AkademikShokalskiyUpdate9_Media_Release.pdf
I don’t think Chris Turney will be knighted for his efforts to repeat Sir Douglas Mawson’s feat!
More likely it is going to be “good night Chris Turney”!
7 people
That ship is not in immanent danger of sinking, so they should be absolutely confident of favorable conditions before attempting rescue. Here’s hoping that they proceed as safely as possible.
Being offended is a self inflicked wound. 🙂
Steve says:
January 1, 2014 at 10:38 pm
7 people
++++++++
Good eyes! I had to pause the video to catch it. Yes indeed –7 flights and 7 people dropped off to check out the situation. Lucky 7!
At this time, I feel correct in saying, Chris Turney is trying again to predict the future, by claiming they’re 100% off. No, Turney, that’s simply not true at this time.
And Chris Turney tweets:
The Chinese helicopter has arrived @ur momisugly the Shokalskiy. It’s 100% we’re off! A huge thanks to all
Quote Chris Turney : ” The Chinese have arrived. 100% we are off”
Don’t count your chickens yet Professor.
( or is that don’t count your Chinese)
Reporting on site the Guardian has updated the story just now to say: ‘In a change of plan, the passengers would be taken not the Xue Long, but to an ice floe near the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which tried but failed to break through to the trapped ship earlier this week.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-under-way-akademik
Turney’s horse came in on 100% according to his tweet and little video :
The first of the helicopters to take us home. Thanks everyone! #spiritofmawson Alok Jha https://vine.co/v/hVxKH5iFB7Q
it would be great if anthony could begin a new thread called “the rescue” or something, as i’m sure a lot of people are having trouble opening the top thread.
Given the fact that the Chinese were recently playing dodgem games with U.S. Ships during their navel exercises.
I suspect the captain of the Polar Star is in no big hurry to get down there.
A – The whole problem could resolve itself in the 5-6 days it takes to get on site.
B – It would be a waste of fuel not to make best speed rather than to dash down there, while there are support vessels nearby even if they are also iced in, since there is no imminent danger to crew and passengers.
C – It would be a suitable tit for tat to the Chinese, for the Polar Star to be the ship that finally is capable of breaking all the others free after over a week stuck in the ice, when they get there.
If it works out that the Xue Long is still iced in when they get on station, it would be a particularly sweet payback for the UCG to break the Xue Long free.
yes I know such ship to ship encounters and dominance games happen all the time at sea.
The Soviets did the same thing to us with their trawlers when I was in the Navy. They would cut across our bow then turn in line with our course to present their stern to us, which would have forced an over taking collision with them if we did not change course or speed. They mostly did it to “herd” us onto a preferred course so they could take pictures of our ship but there was some gamesmanship involved as well.
Call me hard-hearted or barbarous but I don’t understand, why so many here wish these swindlers well.
These government-funded parasites want all of us, rational people, to die out. They steal our money under the false pretexts. They undermine liberty and economy, they pervert the good name of science.
Why should I cry if they freeze and drown?
alok jha tweets:
First passengers from Shoklakiy have taken off, now on their way to Aurora Australis pic.twitter.com/PS4uOndHX4
also:
Antarctic rescue from Akademik Shokalskiy gets under way – first pictures http://gu.com/p/3yh2d/tw v
https://twitter.com/alokjha
——————————————————————————–
Mr. Feht… Amen!
Watched the video…strange there is no pad laid out for the chopper to land on…or take the time to put the skis on it. Oh… I forgot…made in China.
Phillips on the Aurora Australis:
2 Jan: SMH: Nicky Phillips: Antarctica rescue of passengers on Akademik Shokalskiy begins
The passengers will be evacuated from the ship by the Xue Long’s helicopter and taken to a thick ice floe next to Australian icebreaker the Aurora Australis.
At 4pm Sydney time, four Australian Antarctic Division staff were lowered to the ice in a small boat to prepare a helicopter landing area and a safe walking passage to the Aurora for the Shokalskiy passengers…
The Xue Long also sent a helicopter crew with engineers to test the landing area before it left to collect the Shokalskiy passengers, who are expected to arrive on the Aurora in the next few hours…
Deck areas on the Aurora have been closed as the operation begins.
Plans to rescue the Shokalskiy passengers changed this morning when it became apparent the Xue Long was itself unable to move out of the pack ice…
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/antarctica-rescue-of-passengers-on-akademik-shokalskiy-begins-20140102-307mv.html
Oh… I forgot…made in China.
very funny
The first 12 have been taken off, direct to an ice floe adjacent Aurora Australia 11 minutes ago.
BBC stating that its reporter has been rescued.
He must be very important, eh?
I hear that the plan is to evacuate the pseudo-scientists, tourists and media first (although I’m not sure of the demarkation lines here) but leave the peasants (aka the crew) behind to rescue the ship “later”. It seems we have in microcosm the great warmist/alarmist master plan for the entire world: The warmists will be OK living on their fat statist salaries/pensions while the rest of us are stuck in the ice.
Yep…all about saving their own skin…leave the crew and others behind.
Ice Wedding Time (Postcard From Antarctica):
http://s13.postimg.org/4e9jvj7qv/Spirit_Of_Mawson.jpg
I remember from a week ago that tweets from the ship said that it was only two miles from open water when it got stuck. If it had been traveling at 8 mph, then it would have gotten free if it the penguin counter had arrived 15 minutes earlier. So his/her dawdling could be the real reason for this crisis. (It would be delicious if the dawdler turns out to be the most alarmist member of the team.)
Amid the widespread ridicule being expressed over this fiasco, he Guardian has launched an education drive to teach us all “the truth” about Antarctica in an article by Oliver Milman entitled “Five basic Antarctic facts for climate change sceptics”.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/02/antarctic-ship-stranding-delights-climate-change-sceptics
Oliver is using his column to try to talk down to “climate change sceptics” and “contrarians” as if he were addressing a kindergarten class. For instance, he informs us that “The Arctic (around the north pole, doesn’t have penguins, but has polar bears) is very different from the Antarctic (around the south pole, has penguins, but not polar bears).” Unfortunately for his credibility, however, in his very first “basic Antarctic fact”, he explains that “The Antarctic is an enormous frozen continent that covers about a fifth of the southern hemisphere.”
Well, I guess that’s close enough for Guardian science reporting. In the real world, though, the area of Antarctica is 5.405 million sq miles (14 million km²), covering about 5.5% of the Southern Hemisphere, which I calculate as about 98 million square miles (255 million km²) on the assumption that it accounts for half of the Earth’s total surface area.
Ollver’s article is going down very well with the Amen Corner of diehard CAGWers at CIF, who are high-fiving his effort, oblivious to the inaccuracy of this pronouncement. Apparently, basic geographic knowledge is not a strong suit down at the Guardian.
A quote from the bottom of the BBC report:
“”Despite being trapped, the scientists have continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.
One of the aims is to track how quickly the Antarctic’s sea ice is disappearing.””
The irony of it all. The BBC are obviously not going to let the truth interfere with their reporting this year either.
The final line shows just how completely out of touch with reality the BBC really is:
“”The ship has plenty of stocks and has never been in danger.””
Trapped in ice in the harshest environment in the world in a cruise ship with a bit of ice reinforcement around the waterline for bumping off flows. No danger huh?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25573096