LANCASTER'S FAMED PILOT DICK RUTAN IS RESCUED.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Five stranded travelers, including famed pilot Dick Rutan of Lancaster, were rescued from the North Pole about 12 hours after their Russian-designed biplane landed and then sank through the ice.

The group boarded a commercial plane late Monday and arrived early Tuesday at Eureka, Nunavut, Canada, a small settlement in the Queen Elizabeth Islands west of Greenland. Another plane hired by their families was scheduled to transport them back to Alaska.

From Anchorage, Rutan spokeswoman Kelly Hall said, ``He'll get home and build a nice warm fire.''

Rutan, a Lancaster resident, became famous in 1986 as one of the two- person crew who made the first flight around the world without stopping or refueling, in the Voyager aircraft designed by his brother, Burt.

In 1998, Rutan and balloonist Dave Melton tried to fly a balloon nonstop around the world, but a little over an hour after takeoff bailed out into a cactus-studded New Mexico cow pasture.

Rutan and the others aboard the An-2 biplane were traveling with a single-engine Cessna 185, whose two occupants radioed for help after the larger plane became stuck.

Stranded on an ice floe about a mile from the North Pole on the North American side, in 14-degree temperatures, the travelers built igloos to spend the night.

For Rutan, the trip had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, Hall said. Rutan had lunched with the other adventurers a few days earlier and they had told him about their upcoming trip.

``Dick said, 'That sounds like fun, I wish I could go.' They said, 'You're in luck, we have room for one more pilot.' In a few days he had a ticket,'' Hall said.

``This was a hurry-up adventure. It was not a sponsored flight. It was not a scientific mission,'' Hall said.

The planes left Anchorage on May 8, and stopped in Fairbanks before heading to the North Pole. They arrived Thursday and spent about an hour on the ice, before setting off for Spitsbergen, Norway. They spent the weekend in Spitsbergen before heading back.

``We just felt like going to the North Pole,'' said Lee Wareham, the Cessna pilot.

Wareham was able to land his small plane and take off again before the ice began breaking up. The larger biplane couldn't get turned around in time for takeoff before it began sinking.

``They were expecting two feet of ice,'' Hall said. ``When they got there they had inches of ice. That was not enough to support the plane,'' Wareham said.

Everyone aboard was able to get off safely and had enough gear to camp out on the ice for about a week. The temperature was about zero degrees.

``It sounded like they had plenty of survival equipment and they were prepared had something gone wrong,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Kevin Dunn, who helped arrange the rescue with Canadian officials.

Wareham and his passenger, Walt Parker of Anchorage, flew on to Deadhorse. Wareham's initial call for help was to a ham radio operator in Fairbanks who alerted authorities shortly before 11 a.m. Monday.

This was not the group's first trip to the North Pole, Wareham said. In 1998, the group successfully retraced a 1928 trans-Arctic flight by Sir George Hubert Wilkins and Alaskan pioneer aviator Ben Eielson.

Besides Rutan, the other travelers were identified as Ron Sheardown, John Pletcher and Jim Bowden, all of Anchorage, and Jan Haugsad of Norway.

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Map: FLIGHT RESCUE

SOURCE: Associated Press