Comment by m4rtink
5 hours ago
Polar stations are even more inaccessible during polar winter with months of total darkness and it is just too dangerous to reach them. The winter-over crews need to be completely self-sufficient until the sun rises again.
For the big McMurdo US base they have flown in a few times in the winter for extremely important life or death medical reasons (last year: Aug 25 [1]) For the smaller other country bases it tends to be too dangerous and impossible. They are not able to use mcmurdo and the americans cant help either.
The general rule is that the Americans don't fly during the winter but they do tend to downplay and not publicize the times when they do fly.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/mcmurdo-statio...