\n A US Air Force flight bound for Antarctica returned to New Zealand after a warning about \u201cpotentially hazardous\u201d space activity, according to New Zealand authorities.\n <\/p>\n
\n A spokesperson for New Zealand\u2019s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the agency was aware the US Air Force flight from Christchurch turned around following a warning it issued, known as a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen).\n <\/p>\n
\n The space activity was notified to the agency by Russia\u2019s State Air Traffic Management Corporation, \u201cresulting in the issuance of a NOTAM advising pilots of the hazard,\u201d CAA said in a statement Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n In a follow-up statement Wednesday, CAA said it was made aware by the Russian air traffic agency of a planned missile launch and \u201cassociated potential hazard to international airspace, within New Zealand\u2019s Oceanic Flight Information Region (FIR),\u201d a 30-million-square-kilometer area which is one of the largest airspaces in the world.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN has reached out to the US Air Force, the US Antarctic Program and the Russian State Air Traffic Management Corporation.\n <\/p>\n
\n Flight tracking site Flightradar24 shows a US military C-17 Globemaster III departed Christchurch Airport around 9 a.m. local time Tuesday headed south, using the call sign ICE28. It returned to Christchurch just before 11:30 a.m., roughly 150 minutes later.\n <\/p>\n
\n The flight was scheduled during the annual Winter Fly-in (WINFLY) period, during which flights resume between Christchurch and the US Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station, and New Zealand\u2019s Scott Base in Antarctica \u2013 a busy period for transporting staff, equipment and supplies ahead of the summer research season.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe put in place a danger area and issued a NOTAM to alert aircraft operators to the potential hazard. This does not prevent aircraft from flying through the area, operators make their decisions based on the information available,\u201d CAA said in its Wednesday statement.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cMuch of our Oceanic FIR is over international waters, where we have limited control over activities,\u201d it added, referring to the airspace of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea, where it\u2019s responsible for aircraft flying at certain altitudes.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US Air Force flight bound for Antarctica returned to New Zealand after a warning about \u201cpotentially hazardous\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-598053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}