Airbus A340 Lands In Antarctica For 1st Time

For the first time in history, an Airbus A340 plane has landed in Antarctica. Hi Fly, a boutique aviation company, was behind the flight.

Photo Insert: The crew of the Hi Fly AirbusA340 celebrates the historic landing with a ceremonial photo op.

The company specializes in wet leases, which means they hire out both aircraft and aircrew and are responsible for handling insurance, maintenance, and other logistics, Lilit Marcus reported for CNN, Hi Fly 801 took off from Cape Town, South Africa on Tuesday, November 2.

The plane was commissioned by Wolf's Fang, a new upscale adventure camp on the world's southernmost continent, and brought much-needed supplies to the resort. Wolf's Fang is a new project from high-end Antarctica tourism company White Desert.

The crew of Hi Fly 801 (and its return trip to Cape Town, Hi Fly 802) was led by Captain Carlos Mirpuri, who is also Hi Fly's vice president. Each flight took between five and five and a half hours, and the team spent less than three hours on the ground in Antarctica, covering 2,500 nautical miles.

The blue-ice runway at the Wolf's Fang property is designated a C Level airport, despite not technically being an airport. That means that only highly specialized crew can fly there due to challenging conditions.

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