After flying 169 km, the crew of the paraplane consisting of Fedor Konyukhov and Igor Potapkin decided to make an emergency landing on an ice floe. The main reason is the sharp deterioration of the weather en-route.
We would like to remind you that the flight to the North Pole started from an ice floe near Rudolf Island (Franz Josef Land) on Friday at 15:10 Moscow time. Around seven in the evening, Konyukhov contacted the support team and reported that the motorized parachute had made an emergency landing. Powerful snow squalls led to the sticking of wet snow on the parts of the aircraft.
The emergency landing took place normally; everyone is alive and well. The travelers spent almost seven hours on the drifting ice floe. At about two o'clock in the morning, the icebreaker "50 Let Pobedy" approached the landing site of the paraplane and took the travelers on board. According to the Telegram channel "Igra Gravitacii" (eng. “Gravity game”), the aircraft has "minor technical problems". It is not known whether they were the result of the emergency landing or appeared in the air.
Meanwhile, the icebreaker reached the North Pole and reversed course. Arrival in Murmansk is expected on August 14. Then Fedor Konyukhov and Igor Potapkin will tell in detail what prevented the first attempt in history to reach the North Pole on an ultralight aircraft.