Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force/Antarctic Photo Library

Military milestone

U.S. Air Force marks 500th mission to Antarctica

Airmen from the 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings, deployed from Joint Base Lewis-McChord , Washington, completed a milestone event when they flew the 500th C-17 Globemaster III Special Assignment Airlift Mission into Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze on Oct. 14, 2012. More than 40,000 passengers and nearly 45 million pounds of cargo have been airlifted by the C-17s since 1999. The first flights of the 2012-13 field season to McMurdo Station arrived on Oct. 1, with a total of 48 missions planned through the end of February 2013.