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North Pole flyover a first for Coast Guard

The Coast Guard conducted its first-ever flight over the North Pole on Thursday, part of a growing effort to expand operations in the Arctic region.

An HC-130 Hercules took off from Barrow, Alaska, at 8:30 a.m. for what was expected to be an eight-hour round trip. The aircraft, assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak, was to travel 1,183 miles to explore the changing environment and observe maritime activity.

“The northern reaches of the Arctic is a new area for us to do surveillance,” Rear Adm. Arthur E. Brooks, 17th Coast Guard District commander, said in a release Thursday.

“We are expanding our patrols because we are seeing increased activity in the region and we need to know what is going on up there,” he said.

The flight comes as other nations have stepped up exploration and movement throughout the region. In August, Russia planted a flag in the seabed below the pole in an attempt to lay territorial claim to it. Denmark, Canada and Norway also have asserted sovereignty in the region.

The region north of the Arctic Circle contains more than 2,500 miles of U.S. shoreline. It also is thought to hold 25 percent of the world’s energy reserves.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen has called for an updated domestic Arctic policy and establishing forward operating bases in places like Barrow — the northern-most U.S. city — to support regional monitoring and search-and-rescue operations.

The flight on Thursday could be the first of many.

“The Arctic is emerging as a functioning body of water with implications for commerce, tourism and transport,” Allen said in a release. “The great distances and harshness of the Arctic climate means we have to be prepared for a new defined mission set in an enormously challenging environment.”

Cmdr. Jeff Carter, a spokesman for Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the service must prepare for increased operations as shipping lanes open in the once-frozen region and civilian activity increases.

“Already you have eco-tourism trips up there. We need to be prepared to respond, to deliver supplies or make rescues as needed,” Carter said.

The Coast Guard icebreaker Healy recently completed a deployment to map a portion of the ocean floor north of Alaska, and the 225-foot buoy tender Spar conducted a waterways evaluation from Nome to the North Slope of Alaska in September.

Participants in the Thursday’s polar flyover included pilots Lt. Thomas Wallin and Lt. William Sportsman and seven crew members: Aviation Maintenance Technician 2nd Class Justin Overcash, Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Joseph Wannamaker, Aviation Electronics Technician 1st Class Glenn Speaks, Aviation Maintenance Technician 2nd Class Kenneth Morris, Chief Aviation Electronics Technician David Boschee, Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Jason Riggs and Aviation Electronics Technician 1st Class Dusty Miranda.

The plane also carried several other Coast Guard representatives, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff member and a resident of Barrow.