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Getting out to the NEEM project site - on the northwest slice of the Greenland ice cap, some hundreds of kilometers from anything - was less fun. Our ride was a Hercules C-130 cargo plane, which also delivered provisions to the camp, as air travel is about the only way to get on and off the ice cap. It was scheduled to depart Kangerlussuaq at about 6 a.m., which required our group to be out of the hotel by 4:30 in the morning. Getting up at 3:45 a.m., I experienced something entirely new after seven years of international reporting...
From 30,000 ft. up, flying over the heart of the ice cap, you can't imagine it would ever be possible to lose Greenland. The only flaws in the sheer, marble-colored landscape are the black shadows cast by the scattered clouds above. But as our plane heads west toward the old American air base at Kangerlussuaq, puddles of blue glacial melt begin to appear - vast, unblinking eyes that reflect the sky back up. Then the whiteness is suddenly ruptured and the ice wrinkles and thins, revealing slashes of rock beneath the 2.9 million cubic...
...only three previous "major safety events." But that record ensures that even small incidents make headlines. Since 2006 there have been a growing list of such relatively minor mishaps: burst tires, a burning engine, a fallen engine panel, an aborted takeoff, a forced switch to battery power as a plane landed. The July 25 incident was far more serious. It was "a tremendously bad one," said Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon, "and it's one we regret...
...same time, the plane will likely drop in altitude quite dramatically. But this sensation is actually good news, says Todd Curtis, an engineer and former airline safety analyst at Boeing. It usually means that the pilots are trying to get the plane low enough so that the outside air is breathable for humans. Says Curtis: "It may seem like the aircraft is going through a radical maneuver, and it is radical compared to normal flying, but this is standard protocol...
There are only about 10 to 15 minutes of oxygen on those masks anyway, and they are provided just to help keep you comfortable until the plane reaches a lower altitude, where you can breathe easily and without assistance. The most important thing is that the pilots get their masks on first - and they have been trained to do this much faster than you will get yours on. That said, it is best to put your mask on before helping anyone else, since you only have a matter of seconds before you may lose consciousness...