The De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter VP-FAZ of The British Antarctic Survey ( BAS) – the UK's national polar research institute – completed its journey to Antarctica this morning, taking off from Punta Arenas, Chile, and heading south towards the British Rothera Station. This operation follows yesterday's flight, which crossed through Argentine territory, and as of midday today, the Argentine Foreign Ministry had not yet released official information.

It is the same aircraft that took off yesterday morning from Carrasco Airport (Montevideo, Uruguay) at 06:51 and landed in Punta Arenas (Chile) at 17:23. After a 10-hour and 33-minute flight, a long journey that was mostly over the continental and maritime territory of Argentina , the Twin Otter 's limited range required the aircraft to make a technical stop for refueling at an intermediate airport.

The silence of the National Government regarding whether permission was granted, and under what sovereignty conditions, allowing the transit and stopover of a British aircraft destined for the Antarctic sector that Argentina claims with more than 120 years of uninterrupted presence , is imprudent.

The four planes that operate in Rothera

The VP-FAZ flight, which finally departed this morning for Antarctica to join three other BAS aircraft already operating on the white continent, is part of an escalating surveillance scenario by the United Kingdom, which uses Punta Arenas as a key logistical epicenter.

This was evidenced on October 13, when Agenda Malvinas documented an unusual simultaneous air activity in the southern skies, with the overlap of aircraft from three countries: A Dash 7 and two British Twin Otters that took off from Punta Arenas heading south, towards the Antarctic bases; A Twin Otter and two CASA 212 aircraft from Chile (FACh) were conducting patrols, and in parallel, the Argentine patrol of a P-3 Orion maritime reconnaissance aircraft and a Twin Otter from the Air Force were covering the national sector.

The demand for transparency

The previously unknown journalistic documentation of these events underscores the urgent need for an official explanation. The government must disclose the conditions and justifications under which the aircraft VP-FAZ was permitted to transit through and potentially use Argentine infrastructure en route to the British base in the Argentine Antarctic sector. The Argentine Foreign Ministry must break its silence and provide official information regarding decisions that directly affect national sovereignty in the South Atlantic and Antarctica.