Air Adventurer, Stranded At South Pole: "I Proved I'm As Human As Everybody Else."

Aviation adventurer Jon Johanson should be flying back to New Zealand from the McMurdo-Scott Base in Antarctica, where he was stranded for several days after his record-breaking flight over the South Pole. Johanson was the first to fly an experimental home-built aircraft over the southernmost point on Earth, but didn't have enough fuel to buck headwinds that stood between him and his planned landing in Ushuaia, Argentina.

When asked by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) how he got into this mess in the first place, Johanson replied from McMurdo-Scott, "Oh, I guess it's because I proved I'm as human as everybody else, unfortunately. We were trying to make the best decisions we could as a team and we basically left the final decision just a little bit too late and, for safety's sake, the best decision was to come back here to McMurdo. We had thought we could continue on and maybe land on one of the basins over on the Arctic peninsular, but when you are 10 hours away, the weather over there can be very, very fickle and you wouldn't want to wind up in that part of the world with low fuel, so the only real safe option was to come back here."

Johanson also denied that he tried to keep the trip secret. "Not, not at all," he said. "I filed the flight plan through the normal flight plan system a good or four hours before departure." Johanson said he also clearly indicated in the flight plan that he would fly over the South Pole.

As for the criticism that's bombarded him from Antarctica New Zealand, Johanson said, "On one level, some people could say, "This is just foolishness and selfishness, so why bother. 'Look at the results, so serves you right.' On that level, it could be a little difficult to argue. Human endeavor as a whole is one of those things. Let's face it - Hilary, when he got to the top of Mt Everest, he was asked, 'Why did you do it?' [Hillary replied] 'Because it was there.'

"For me," Johanson continued, "I have flown around the world east, I've flown around the world west, I've flown over the North Pole around the world. It was sort of the final point."

FMI: http://users.chariot.net.au/~theburfs/jjohanson.html