"I call this my frozen asset," said Ron Sheardown of the AN-2 biplane that is still drifting in the ice pack somewhere in the Arctic Ocean.
Sheardown, an arctic pilot and mining prospector, lost the aircraft May 15, when he, famed long-distance aviator Dick Rutan, Anchorage businessman Jim Bowden and Norwegian Jan Haugland were stranded at the North Pole after the 12,000-pound AN-2 broke through 16 inches of sea ice shortly after landing.
Not letting that detour his flying future, Sheardown has plans to order a similar AN-2 next spring for a South Pole to North Pole circumnavigation of the earth.
"I have waited a while to let my wife decide whether to let me buy another airplane. I call it the kitchen cabinet decision," Sheardown added.
|
Ron Sheardown, left, and Donald Olson stand at the North Pole in 1997.
PHOTO/Courtesy Ron Sheardown
|
The National Transportation Safety Board-rated incident happened next to a Cessna 185 piloted by Lee Wareham, who was to check the ice thickness and signal Sheardown of any danger, according to Sheardown.
Wareham and passenger John Pletcher signaled that the ice was fracturing after Sheardown had landed and was cooling the AN-2's engine for shutdown, according to Sheardown and Rutan, who videotaped the incident.
Sheardown and the group were rescued May 16 after 13 hours on the ice by a Twin Otter summoned by the Canadian Coast Guard. The group had to leave all belongings behind.
With 17,000 hours and 40 years of experience flying in the arctic, Sheardown solicited support to mount an expedition to retrieve the aircraft, frozen in the sea ice up to the lower wing. Sheardown's certainty about the rescue of the $150,000 PZL-built Antonov was based on his expertise as a trained ice observer.
On a mission to find the aircraft, Sheardown flew back to Spitsbergen, Norway, with Jeff Helmericks over the pole in Helmericks' Piper Twin Comanche in late July.
Sheardown and Helmericks were then flown from Spitsbergen to the nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker Yamal by an Mi-8 helicopter in hopes of finding the biplane while the ship was on a course to the North Pole and back.
Aided by the Explorers Club in New York, Sheardown and Helmericks were allowed onto the 330-foot, 75,000-horsepower icebreaker, under special charter by Seattle-based TCS Expeditions. They joined 105 passengers paying $17,000-$24,000 per person.
After failing to obtain any local financial support, Sheardown approached the University of Alaska Fairbank's Geophysical Institute to enlist its help in tracking or obtaining satellite images of the aircraft.
"They were no help, so I went to the University of Washington," Sheardown said. "These people were fantastic. They sent e-mail every day to the Yamal with coordinates of the two transponders near my airplane."
The grounded AN-2 was originally frozen into the ice about 30 miles from the transponders used to track the continually moving ice pack. Sheardown and the Yamal used the information to set the icebreaker's course in finding the aircraft to and from the North Pole.
"We made two attempts to find the camp and my airplane but there was no sign of either," Sheardown said. Had they found the aircraft, a crane located on the reactor deck of the Yamal could have been used to lift the aircraft to the deck, according to Sheardown.
The 2,000-nautical-mile trip took 11 days from Spitsbergen to the North Pole, and then to Franz Joesef Land, Russia, with a return to Spitsbergen, Sheardown said. Four or five days after the return Sheardown realized that it was "hopeless."
But not completely. He pointed out that every 20-30 years someone in Barrow spots a whaling ship called the Fram, which was also frozen in the ice at the turn of century. Much like the Fram, the AN-2 may return.
"Someone in Barrow will spot my airplane years from now," Sheardown said, "or a dog team will run up on it somewhere on the coast of Greenland."
