Byrd Flies Over South Pole: Antarctic Aviation First

Commander Richard E. Byrd, navigator Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June, and photographer Ashley McKinley took off from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf on November 29, 1929, in a Ford Trimotor named the Floyd Bennett. Roughly 18 hours later, they had become the first people to fly over the South Pole, completing one of the last great geographic firsts. Byrd had already claimed the first flight over the North Pole in 1926, though that achievement has been disputed by historians. The South Pole flight faced fewer questions but greater physical challenges. The route from the expedition's base, Little America, required crossing more than 800 miles of Antarctic terrain, including the 11,000-foot Transantarctic Mountains. The Ford Trimotor had a maximum altitude barely sufficient to clear the mountain passes. The critical moment came at the Liv Glacier. The heavily loaded plane could not gain enough altitude to clear the pass. Balchen circled repeatedly while the crew jettisoned emergency food to reduce weight. The Trimotor scraped over the ridge with terrifyingly little clearance. Once past the mountains, the flight to the Pole and back was relatively straightforward, though temperatures dropped to minus 30 degrees and navigation relied on dead reckoning over featureless white landscape. Byrd returned to a hero's welcome and a promotion to rear admiral. His expeditions established American claims in Antarctica and pioneered polar logistics that became critical during the Cold War. McMurdo Station, still the largest research base on the continent, sits near Little America. The flight proved that aviation could conquer even the planet's most forbidding geography, opening Antarctica to scientific exploration that continues today.