Patricia Hepinstall and Ruth Kelley
American flight attendant, one of the first two women to fly to Antarctica in 1957
The first women to fly to Antarctica were the American flight attendants Patricia (Pat) Hepinstall of Holyoke, Colorado, U.S. and Ruth Kelley of Houston, Texas, U.S. who were members of the crew on the Pan American flight which landed at the US McMurdo Station on October 15, 1957.
The two women joined the flight in Christchurch, New Zealand, on the last leg of the flight from San Francisco. They received a warm welcome at the base despite misgivings by Rear-Adminal Dufek who had called for an all-male crew. The matter was however outside his jurisdiction. Although some of the station's over-wintering staff avoided meeting the women after so many months, some 50 others took part in celebrations which included a beard contest and a US versus New Zealand sled race. New Zealanders from the nearby Scott Base were also invited to attend. The PanAm pilot, Ralph Savory, referred to the flight attendants as "very nice looking stewardesses".
“Patricia Hepinstall and Ruth Kelley” enters the record as american flight attendant, one of the first two women to fly to Antarctica in 1957. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Patricia, Hepinstall and Ruth can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Patricia Hepinstall and Ruth Kelley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.