[font=Courier New:q6lobfpo]Reference the Pegasus crash.
I was in Christchurch when she crashed.
The crash was on the ice runway. Williams field on the ice shelf was only used by ski equipped C-130s and Helos. Wheels only aircraft conducted operations from the ice runway.
The Pegasus arrived at McMurdo in a white out. Several passes were made using the GCA, however the runway was not sighted. A decision was made to make a landing before the fuel was gone. As I recall there was a high very cross wind. The touch down was made blind from a GCA approach. The wind blew the wing into the snow berm and the Pegasus cart wheeled on the runway, there was a question about the number of spins, 3 or 4 perhaps more. All aboard survived. The worst injury was a cut on the co-pilots head, hit when he stood up after the Pegasus came to rest. (See Passing of a Pegasus Pilot, posted 4/8/2002. Denny Zelna was the Co-pilot)
Most of our Helo pilots and Helo support personnel were on Pegasus. Their loss would have limited summer support.
The white out was so bad it took three or four hours to find the survivors. The ground crew knew they had crashed and commenced a search. All VXE-6 aircraft carried survival gear. The survivors had set up tents and had heat when finally located on the ice run way.
I was a C-130 aircraft commander, 319 crew
Billy Blackwelder [/font:q6lobfpo]heloking@gateway.net[font=Courier New:q6lobfpo] a Helo pilot was a Pegasus passenger, he can give you the “inside story”
Regards, Skua
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