Spend an Arctic winter in the South Pole area. It was not the plan of the 19-year-old American influencer Ethan Guo, but since his plane in June stranded on a Chilean part of Antarctica, the teenager has been stuck there. After his landing, GUO, who tries to raise money for cancer investigation by being the youngest pilot ever to fly to all seven continents on his own, arrested by Chilean authorities for providing false information. According to them, Guo did not include his flight plan that he would land in Antarctica and he had no permission for that, which makes the landing illegal.
While waiting for his trial, the teenager had to stay on Chilean territory. He has therefore been spending six weeks on a Chilean military base on Antarctica. On Monday it was announced that the indictment will be withdrawn. But: the influencer is no longer allowed in Chile for the next three years and has to leave the base as quickly as possible. That is easier said than done: in August the heart of winter in Antarctica, and weather conditions make it impossible to rise now.
Warm piece of Antarctica
At the end of June, Guo landed on the Antarctic King George Island with his single-engine aircraft. That is the largest of the South Shet Land Islands, an archipelago from which the United Kingdom, Argentina and Chile have claimed parts. In the past, the islands were inhabited by seals and whales, now by scientists and soldiers who man the research stations and bases.
“He is still lucky that he landed there, that is one of the hottest places in Antarctica,” says Stef Bokhorst on the phone. Bokhorst, affiliated with the Free University, is an ecologist and regularly comes to the South Pole area for his research into Mossen. Only in the summer – in the winter you can’t do anything there. “Then everything is covered with half a meter of snow.”
The Netherlands has no country in Antarctica, but it does have a research center: the Dirck Gerritszlaboratorium. Given the enormous size of Antarctica, that is relatively close to the landing site of Guo. Policy officer of the Dutch Polair Program Tom van Hoof has just returned from vacation and had not yet received the news about the stranded influencer. “My first reaction: at all a miracle that he achieved with a Cessna, even in the summer period that route is known for his storms.”
Especially silly
Bokhorst also surprised that the landing was successful. “You don’t have a radar to land, so he had to do everything at sight,” explains the scientist. “And if there is as much snow as now, everything is white: the runway, but also frozen pieces of sea with a layer of snow on it.” That an aircraft lands on Antarctica in the winter months almost never happens – only a few times for a medical emergency.
By landing suddenly, without permission on the island, the pilot not only endangers himself, says Bokhorst, but he also makes that the responsibility of the people there. “If something goes wrong, they must help him, because there is nothing else there. That can cause them to take risks themselves,” said Bokhorst. “I agree with those Chileans.”
He sketches a basis such as the one on which Guo is now, as a small self -sufficient village with generators and a limited stock of food. An extra resident can therefore increase the costs enormously. Just by showering. Bokhorst: “You can open the tap, but that is all ocean water that needs to be filtered and that costs a lot of power.” Expenditure on his livelihood must fully repay Guo of the Chilean Public Prosecution Service.
Cancer research
Guo started his world trip last September from Memphis. In an Instagram video he says that he has been preparing the trip since he was thirteen: he switched to home education to “focus on his mission” and obtained his high school diploma early. At the age of seventeen he won his flight license.
When his nephew received a cancer diagnosis in 2021, Guo decided to link a good cause to the trip. During the flight he calls on his 1.4 million followers to donate money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. That hospital is internationally known for its childhood cancer investigation.