From CNN - A U.S. Air Force pilot has landed a plane in Antarctica in
the dark for the first time using night-vision goggles, a feat that
could lead to more supply flights to scientific bases in the frozen
continent during its dark winter months, officials said Friday.

The C-17 Globemaster cargo airplane landed in a driving snowstorm on the
10-kilometer (six mile) ice runway at the U.S. Antarctic research center
at McMurdo Station, after months of practice runs by pilots using the
goggles.

The Air Force plane took off from Christchurch, New Zealand, and flew
nearly six hours before landing Thursday night. It returned to
Christchurch early Friday.

Air Force Lt. Col. Jim McGann said the airplane's own lights --
reflecting off of traffic cones -- allowed it to land without electrical
runway lights that are too hard to maintain in the frozen environment.

McGann told New Zealand's national radio that the breakthrough flight
could mean year-round supply flights for U.S. and New Zealand science
bases on the ice.

Traditionally, the onset of the southern hemisphere winter in Antarctica
ends flights to the frozen continent for six months as the sun sinks
below the horizon.

"At the moment, we make that last trip in February and then don't come
back until August," McGann said. "If we can go in and out a couple of
times a month, we can go and get people out or drop more people off."

The head of the New Zealand government's Antarctic research body, Lou
Sanson, told The Associated Press that the flight was a technological
achievement that would allow the U.S. Air Force to operate virtually
around-the-clock on the harshest continent on Earth.

"I think the most significant advantage is medical evacuation," he said.

At least three major medical evacuations have been carried out from
Antarctic bases in recent years, including an emergency flight for a
U.S. doctor at the South Pole who had developed breast cancer.

Sanson said the night-flight breakthrough also opens new opportunities
for research.

"If we look ahead 10 years, it may offer important new opportunities for
winter science, be it the study of sea life growth or emperor penguins
in winter -- it gives the ability to put scientists into there for a
short time rather than the whole winter," he said