'When you look at the maps they produced you can see just how much of the continent they were able to see from a plane, rather than a ship or walking across the ice. 'Wilkins and Byrd were the first people to systematically fly over Antarctica,' says Adrian Howkins, a reader in environmental history at the University of Bristol. 'The plane was the real game changer because you can cover so much ground so quickly,' says Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at the University of London Royal Holloway, and author of The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction.īut aircraft also gave explorers an entirely new perspective on the Antarctic continent that allowed them to see just how vast it really was. Like elsewhere in the world, even in the early days of Antarctic aviation, aircraft completely transformed what explorers were able to achieve. 'We have GPS and radio, but they would set out on long flights to the pole with only a sextant to estimate their positions with, and a lack of, even basic communications equipment.' 'The pioneers like Wilkins were hugely courageous aviators,' says Victoria Auld, a pilot with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Their expeditions paved the way to the demilitarised, environmentally protected, and science-led Antarctica we have today, even if it is, perhaps, not the one they wanted. Wilkins's flight was followed by similar flights by early aerial pioneers such as Richard Byrd, aviators divided by feuds but who were as brave as their muscle-powered predecessors. There are around 50 runways in Antarctica, and Australia is hoping to build a new concrete runway. With that flight, the machine age of Antarctic exploration had definitively arrived – the flying-machine age – and arguably, we are still in it nearly a century later. It ended, arguably, at 8.20am on 20 December 1928, when Australian Sir George Hubert Wilkins took off in a 'sleek, shiny, bullet-shaped' high-wing monoplane from Deception Island, just off the Antarctic Peninsula, to explore the last great hole in the map. While Shackleton’s name and biography are still famous around the world, the Endurance22 mission is as focused on the future as the past.The heroic age of Antarctic exploration reached its zenith in December 1911, when Norwegian Roald Amundsen beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole. Credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust The Endurance will not be moved, but will be studied where she was found. Instead, she will remain where she is and be studied, mapped and photographed there. What happens next?Īs per the guidelines of the Antarctic Treaty - which was signed by 12 countries in 1959 and is the closest thing to a constitution for the southernmost continent - Endurance will not be moved or taken apart. Once they were close to where they believed the shipwreck was, explorers used Sabertooth hybrid underwater search vehicles made by Saab to locate her. On board were a mixed group including scientists, historians and filmmakers who were capturing footage for an upcoming National Geographic documentary about the journey to locate Endurance. Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship HMS Endurance has been located. Fittingly, they dubbed their ship - and mission - Endurance22. The discovery team departed from Cape Town on the South African polar research and logistics vessel, S.A. Its resting place is about four miles south of where Captain Frank Worsley, a New Zealander who helmed the ship, had believed it to be.

Credit: AAP How was Endurance found?Īfter being abandoned, Endurance eventually sank into the Weddell Sea, where she has been ever since. The wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance has been found off the coast of Antarctica. The 28 men on board, including Shackleton himself, abandoned the Endurance and set up rudimentary camp facilities on board ice floes that were floating northward.Įventually, the team made it to the uninhabited Elephant Island, then some - including Shackleton - volunteered to get in a lifeboat and head toward South Georgia Island, finally crossing it on foot to reach Stromness whaling station, which was then manned by the Norwegians, and organize a rescue of the men left behind on Elephant Island.Īlthough the expedition was a failure, the team’s survival and eventual rescue months later, without any loss of life, was seen as a triumph of their tenacity and the incredible leadership skills of Shackleton.įollowing another expedition later in his life, Shackleton died on South Georgia Island in 1947 and is buried there.

HMS Endurance has been located more than a century after it sank.

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