Which Antarctic airstrip is named after a Constellation?

On October 8, 1970, a Lockheed C-121J Constellation with serial number 131644 had to make a forced landing near McMurdo Station, on Ross Island, Antarctica, in the middle of a snowstorm. The accident caused no casualties, which is unusual for an accident of that kind in such a hostile environment. The episode ended up giving its name to an airstrip: Pegasus Field, named after the aircraft.

The C-121J was one of the transport variants of the Constellation family used by the US Navy. Besides logistics missions, some aircraft were adapted for very specific uses: four C-121J were converted into VIP transports, and one of them served with the Blue Angels aerobatic team until a C-130 Hercules replaced it in 1971. That a piston-engined airliner designed in the 1940s ended up operating in Antarctica shows the versatility the Navy found in it.

This aircraft's story is part of the long list of Constellation accidents and incidents, which ranges from catastrophes with dozens of victims to episodes like this one, in which the crew survived and the aircraft became part of the Antarctic landscape. For those who work in the area today, Pegasus is above all an aeronautical place name; but behind the name is a Lockheed four-engine aircraft that could not complete its flight and that, without meaning to, left its mark on one of the most remote places on the planet. That same year, 1970, the Navy still kept other C-121J in service on very different missions, such as the one supporting the Blue Angels.