Three Staffers Evacuated From Research Station

A U.S. Air Force plane carrying three sick workers from an American research station on the Antarctic coast landed in New Zealand after a daring flight to the icy continent, officials said.

Flights are suspended to Antarctica around the end of February each year, when the Southern Hemisphere winter makes it too cold to fly, and they don’t resume until October.

Authorities made an exception Saturday to rescue three sick staffers at McMurdo station, run by the U.S. National Science Foundation. A brief statement from the NSF gave no details on the patients or their conditions.