When you think of helicopters, you don’t typically think of making transcontinental trips. Usually, helicopters are used to complete short missions, like trips from the airport to a nearby racetrack, or for news stations to get a birds’ eye view of the local traffic.
Don’t tell that to Jennifer Murray. In 2000, Murray became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a helicopter. In 2007, Murray circumnavigated the globe in a way nobody else in history had, regardless of gender. Murray made the trip, this time from Pole to Pole, completing the trip in 171 days and touching down in 25 different countries. She made the 33,000-mile journey in a single-engine Bell 407 at age 66, having learned to fly just 12 years prior at age 54.
Murray explained that she learned to fly a helicopter only because her husband bought a half share in a helicopter, and neither of them were pilots. “I haven’t got time to learn, so you better,” her husband told her.
The trip was anything but easy. Murray and her copilot, Colin Bodill, barely escaped death near the North Pole as freezing cold cloud coverage threatened to freeze the rotor in mid air. In fact, both Jennifer and her copilot had attempted the trip on a previous occasion, nearly losing their lives as the trip ended with a devastating crash during a blizzard in the Antarctic that brought temperatures down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. They were a third of the way through their first attempt when the blizzard hit, breaking Murray’s arm and giving her copilot severe chest injuries.
Murray explained that the reason for the second attempt was, above all else, about healing. Completing the round-the-globe flight was emotional for both pilots. During their second attempt, the duo landed again at the site of the crash, this time unharmed, to bury the key to the destroyed aircraft.
“It was such an emotional moment I broke down,” Murray said. “Here we were, alive. This was the spot. And we were continuing. We were going to make it.”
Today, at age 76, Murray continues to fly a Robinson R44, identical to the aircraft she flew when she circumnavigated the globe the first time, from east to west. From the blistering heat of massive deserts to the freezing cold of desolate polar regions, every minute of her Pole to Pole journey was transcribed in a book, written by Murray, titled Polar First. Check it out on Amazon.
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