Teenage aviator stuck on an island off Antarctica after landing without permission, Chile says

Ethan Guo aimed to fly solo to all seven continents but hit legal trouble in Chile. Photo / 123RF

A 19-year-old American content creator who was trying to fly solo to all seven continents was detained by Chilean authorities this week after they said he had landed his plane on an island off Antarctica without authorisation.

The teenager, Ethan Guo, said in an interview today NZT that he was being housed at a Chilean base on King George Island, roughly 120km off the coast of Antarctica, as the case against him proceeds.

Chilean officials said that although Guo had initially been detained, he was now free to leave the island as long as he remained in Chile until his case is resolved.

Guo had been documenting his journey around the world on TikTok, where he has more than 329,000 followers, and Instagram, where he has about 1.3 million followers.

Guo, who obtained his pilot’s licence at 17, was aiming to become the first person to fly solo in a small aircraft to all seven continents, according to his website, and was hoping to raise US$1 million for cancer research.

Antarctica was the only continent where he had yet to land, he said.

Last weekend, he took off from Punta Arenas, a city near the southern tip of Chile, with a flight plan indicating that he was going to fly over the city and land again in Punta Arenas, prosecutors said.

But without notifying aviation authorities, Guo flew his Cessna 182Q across the Southern Ocean and landed at a Chilean airstrip on King George Island, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that Guo had submitted “false flight plan data” and that when he deviated from that plan, aviation officials declared that his Cessna had been “lost”.

They say his actions violated Chilean aviation regulations and jeopardised public safety.

“This could have been a tragedy,” Cristian Crisosto Rifo, a Chilean prosecutor, said on a radio show this week, arguing that Guo’s plane could have crashed into another plane.

Guo said he had left Punta Arenas with an approved plan to fly to Ushuaia, on the southern tip of Argentina.

“Due to weather conditions and in order to ensure my safety, I had to divert to” a Chilean airstrip on King George Island, he said. The airstrip is public, he said.

“I have instructed my lawyers to express my full willingness to co-operate with the prompt clarification of the facts,” Guo said.

“It’s not my intention to commit any violation of Chilean law, and I hope to soon continue my crusade in the fight against cancer.”

Guo’s Chilean lawyer, Karina Ulloa, did not immediately respond to emails.

Prosecutors said that the investigation into his flight was continuing and that a hearing in Punta Arenas had been scheduled for August 11 as they “explore an alternative outcome to the case”.

“For the time being, he remains at President Eduardo Frei Montalva Base in Antarctica, but he is not deprived of his liberty,” Iván Stipicic Mackenney, a Chilean court spokesperson, said. “He simply has nowhere else to go because of the inherent isolation of the territory.”

As a practical matter, Guo may not be able to leave the island until August, when a Chilean Air Force plane may fly to the Chilean mainland, Stipicic said. There is no regular commercial airline service to the island until the end of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, he said.

Asked how he was faring on the island, Guo said in a message on WhatsApp that he “could be better”.

He said he had asked Chilean authorities to approve a plan that would allow him to fly to Punta Arenas as soon as Sunday.

“As of now, we don’t know a way” to leave, Guo said, adding that he was “still figuring it out”.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Michael Levenson

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