Lufthansa's longest flight to transport the Antarctic crew begins
Lufthansa started the longest non-stop flight in the history of the German airline on Sunday evening, flying from the German city of Hamburg to the Falkland Islands - 13,700 kilometers away.
A company spokeswoman said the special flight was expected to take 15 hours and 35 minutes.
On board the plane bound for the "Mount Pleasant" military base, researchers from the German Alfred Wegener Institute and the new crew of the German research icebreaker "Polarstern".
Once in the Falkland Islands, the crew will board an icebreaker to spend two months in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica to collect long-term data on climate forecasts.
