MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Injured British pilots recovering in Punta Arenas

Veteran British explorers Jennifer Murray, 63, and Colin Bodill, 54, were evacuated this Saturday evening to Punta Arenas hospital after their helicopter fell in the Antarctic while attempting to break the world helicopter pole to pole flight record.

Pilot Jennifer Murray, and a grandmother, who holds the solitary world helicopter flight record and copilot Bodill were transported from Patriot Hill base in Antarctica by the Chilean Air Force and are now under treatment in a private Punta Arenas clinic.

Ms. Murray has a left arm fracture and multiple contusions and Mr. Bodill suffered a serious "abdominal" contusion according to Magallanes Clinic Emergency Unit.

The reasons for the accident, 120 miles north of Patriot Hill are still unknown.

The accident occurred four days after the explorers arrived in the Antarctic continent the first major leg of their 32,000 miles helicopter marathon.

Ms. Murray and Mr. Bodill left New York last October 20 and flew south along the eastern US coast, crossed the Caribbean and then to central Brazil. From there to Argentina and the south Atlantic coast to the cold south in Ushuaia before jumping across Drake passage, arriving in the Antarctic on the centenary of the first engine flight of the Wright brothers.

The following 16,000 miles major leg of the trip was to fly north along the Chilean coast, Peru, Central America, US west coast, Canada, Alaska to the Artic and the North Pole, where they expected to arrive April 8, 2004. A triumphant reception in New York was planned for April 15.

The main purpose for the flight with the Bell 407 helicopter was to establish a new world record and talk about environmental affairs along the route.

Ms. Murray in 2000 established the woman's world record for the fastest helicopter solitary flight around the globe, which she accomplished in 99 days.