MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

St Helena longliner adrift in Antarctica rescued by USAF

A US Air Force plan drops engine parts to a trawler trapped in the ice in the Ross Sea.

A St Helena registered longliner stranded in the Ross Sea in Antarctica for two weeks is expected to leave the area sometime on Monday.

The "Argos Georgia" owned by a Argos Holdings based in the Falkland Islands suffered failure in its main engine on 23 December, leaving the vessel and its 25 crew adrift and surrounded by ice, according to the New Zealand press. After two unsuccessful attempts to drop the required engine parts to the vessel, a US Air Force C-17 plane from Christchurch, NZ, dropped supplies and the necessary items on Saturday night. USAF Lieutenant Colonel Jim McGann says currents were moving the trawler deep into pack ice towards Antarctica and the vessel would have become trapped if she had been disabled for much longer. "This is what we train for, what we're experts at. It's a challenging mission, but this capability is inherent in the C-17 and epitomizes the Global Reach concept" said the Commander of the 304th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, Lt Col. Jim McGann. Peter Thomson, the director of operations of Argos Holdings said she is now expected to leave the area in 36 hours. However he added that they won't know the exact reason for the failure of the engine until it is examined upon the vessel's return to the Post of Lyttelton in mid-February. Mr Thomson says the USAF "Operation Deep Freeze" also included newspapers and a big box of chocolates in the supply drop. He says three New Zealanders are aboard the Argos Georgia: the chief engineer, the second engineer and the fishing master. New Zealand, which is responsible for coordinating rescues in the area and has a research base there, called on US assistance as other options would have taken too long. The US Air Force C-17 Globemaster dropped the spares from about 120 meters above the ship. This is the latest in a series of dangerous incidents on polar waters. In November a cruise liner Explorer hit an iceberg and sank near the Antarctic Peninsula and last week another cruise liner, Fram, lost power and hit a glacier.