A TC-12B Huron of the Argentine Navy ‘s (ARA) Maritime Surveillance Aeronaval Squadron flew from the Río Grande Naval Air Base to the Petrel Joint Antarctic Base. An ARA aircraft had not landed in Antarctica in more than half a century.
As Gaceta Marinera (a publication of the Argentine Navy) explains, the return to the white continent required extensive annual training and readiness work to operate on unprepared runways and meticulous planning and execution. Thanks to this, the Argentine Navy achieved the goal of returning with fixed-wing aircraft to the Antarctic Continent after 51 years.
Después de 51 años, la Armada vuelve a volar hacia la Antártida, superando un desafío más en su historia.
Hoy, un avión B200 de la @Armada_Arg completó con éxito un vuelo desde la Base Aeronaval Río Grande hasta la Base Antártica Petrel, con el apoyo de un avión P3C Orión. ¡Un… pic.twitter.com/BjDZshDiJo— Ministerio Defensa (@MinDefensa_Ar) November 27, 2024
In this way, the search and rescue capacity, sanitary evacuations and logistic flights for the support of the Argentine Republic’s operations on the white continent will be recovered.
Return to the White Continent
In the early morning of Wednesday, November 27, the air operation was carried out from the Río Grande Naval Air Base to the Petrel Joint Antarctic Base (BAC), whose runway was recently rehabilitated by the Antarctic crew. After a rigorous meteorological monitoring, at 1 AM a TC-12B Huron from the Maritime Surveillance Air Squadron took off, accompanied by the recently incorporated P-3C Orion from the Exploration Air Squadron, which provided logistical support and verified the weather and runway conditions from the air.
The aircraft arrived at Petrel around 5 AM. While the P-3C monitored the environment, the TC-12B made the scheduled landing, remaining on the apron for two hours for refueling. At 7 AM, the Huron took off on a direct flight back to Rio Grande, successfully completing this key operation for the logistical link with the Antarctic base.
The Argentine Navy has not operated fixed-wing aircraft from runways in Antarctica for more than 51 years. The last operations of this type were carried out at the “Petrel Naval Air Station”, inaugurated on February 22, 1967, whose history dates back to a naval refuge established in 1952. Between 1967 and 1972, the Navy used DHC-2 Beaver, Twin Otter and PC-6 Porter aircraft from that base. However, a 1972 fire severely damaged the facility, limiting the station’s use to the summer season.
But in 2013 plans were activated to return it to its original role and transform it into a multimodal logistics hub for the Argentine Antarctic Program, taking advantage of its geographical advantages over Marambio Base and improving the distribution of cargo and people to the thirteen Argentine Antarctic bases.
The new runway at Petrel Base was inaugurated on June 1, 2024 by a Saab 340 light transport aircraft of the Argentine Air Force, operating under the orbit of the Argentine Joint Antarctic Command (COCOANTAR).
