Arctic

Crashed Russian helicopter pilot rescued after spending 30 hours on Arctic sea ice

A Russian helicopter pilot forced to ditch his aircraft in the Arctic Ocean between Canada and Greenland was rescued after spending more than 30 hours on the ice, according to multiple news sources.

Sergey Ananov, identified in a Canadian Press report as a 49-year-old sociologist and journalist, survived the crash, a soaking in Arctic waters and an encounter with polar bears before being rescued by Canadian Coast Guard crew Monday.

Ananov was flying a Robinson R22 helicopter between Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Nuuk, Greenland -- part of his bid to be the first person to fly a helicopter solo around the Arctic Circle -- when the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure about halfway along the route, over Davis Strait.

The adventurer was prepared with a life raft and survival suit but almost didn't have the chance to benefit from them.

"[My] leg was stuck. And the life raft was stuck," he told NunatsiaqOnline. "So I need to dive into the water to undo my leg and my life raft. So it was not easy. But I had no time to take anything from the cabin," Ananov said.

Once he reached the relative safety of a nearby ice floe, he told CBC News North, he was able to get out of his soaked street clothing and into the survival suit.

He fired off two flares but then decided to save the final flare, which meant he had to find other means to scare off the three polar bears he encountered: "I was struggling with them, not physically, but morally, more or less. Trying to frighten them," he told CBC News.

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The tactic worked, and the bears fled.

Sunday evening he spotted the lights of the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Pierre Radisson, which had been traveling toward him for about 24 hours at that point, having departed Iqaluit when Ananov's SPOT beacon ceased transmitting, and fired his final flare.

Despite his own estimate that he would've died had he spent another day on the ice, Ananov told NunatsiaqOnline that he would make another attempt next year.

"Of course I must finish what I started," he said. "And I can do it again."

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