Debris from a military transport plane
carrying 38 people that vanished two days earlier en route to Antarctica has
been discovered in the treacherous waters of Drake Passage, Chile's Air Force
said Wednesday.
Air Force Gen. Eduardo Mosqueira said the material was found
floating roughly 19 miles from the location where the C-130 Hercules last had
radio contact two days earlier.
The Associated Press reported that among the recovered items, searchers have found a landing wheel,
sponge-like material from the fuel tanks and part of the plane's inside
wall.
The C-130 Hercules took off Monday afternoon from a base in
far southern Chile on a regular maintenance flight for an Antarctic base. Radio
contact was lost 70 minutes later.
The debris was spotted by a private plane assisting in the
search, and officials said a Brazilian ship in the area equipped with
instruments will next scan 10,499 feet underwater at the site. The discovery
came as Chilean officials said they had expanded the search for the missing
military plane and would scan an area of roughly 70,000 square miles.
The search area extends over Drake Passage between the tip
of South America and Antarctica. The plane was carrying 17 crew members and 21
passengers, three of them civilians.
Ed Coleman, a pilot and chair of the Safety Science
Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, said
rapidly changing weather in the Antarctic makes it difficult to fly there. Air
masses converge, driving storms with powerful wind gusts while stirring the sea
with swells of at least 20 feet, he said. Flying becomes challenging, and a
smooth sea landing is nearly impossible, he said.