Updated at 6:30 a.m. ETA small plane on a daring winter evacuation mission from the South Pole landed safely Wednesday night at Punta Arenas, Chile.The National Science Foundation, which runs the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, says the Twin Otter rescue aircraft took off from the South Pole with two patients early Wednesday. It arrived at a British base 1,500 miles away shortly after 1 p.m. ET before continuing on to Chile.The South Pole station is staffed year round, but normally nobody enters or leaves during the winter months, which corresponds to the North American summer. "It's mind-boggling how cold it gets down there," says Jerry Macala, who oversaw the first-ever evacuation from the station in 2001. Temperatures routinely drop below -70 Fahrenheit, and the C-130 transport aircraft used during the summer months cannot land, Macala tells Kelly McEvers on Wednesday's All Things Considered.Macala says that landing a plane in the perpetual night is considered extremely dangerous
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