US pilot Ethan Guo donates $30,000 to children’s foundation after Antarctica plane landing

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — American pilot and influencer Ethan Guo, who was stuck more than two months at a Chilean air base in Antarctica, made a $30,000 donation Tuesday to a children’s cancer foundation under an agreement with local authorities to avoid trial after landing on the white continent in June.

Guo had been charged June 29 with providing false information to ground control and landing without authorization a day earlier at the air base, but a judge in August dropped the charges as part of an agreement with his lawyers and Chilean prosecutors.

The agreement stipulates that the pilot make the $30,000 donation as soon as conditions allow and leave the country within 30 days of completing the donation. Guo also was prohibited from reentering Chilean territory for three years under the terms of the agreement.

Guo, who was 19 years old when he began his fundraising mission for cancer research, was attempting to become the youngest person to fly solo to all seven continents.

But he was briefly detained after landing because Chilean authorities said he lied to officials by providing authorities with “false flight plan data.” Prosecutors said he had been authorized to only fly over Punta Arenas in southern Chile, but that he kept going south, heading for Antarctica in his single-engine Cessna 182Q.

Authorities said that they authorized him to land in a Chilean air base in Antarctica only because he had reported an emergency.

“We are satisfied with the ‘alternative solution’ we have achieved,” Guo’s lawyer, Jaime Barrientos, told reporters Tuesday in Santiago. The donation, he added, is part of a set of conditions that allowed for “the immediate closure of the case once approved by the judge.”

The influencer, now 20, has denied any wrongdoing.

According to Guo’s lawyer, the teen pilot was granted authorization to deviation from his initial route from Punta Arenas, southern Chile, to Ushuaia, Argentina — and land at a Chilean air base in Antarctica due to “weather and technical circumstances.”

After landing, the influencer was briefly detained and then released. Though not barred from leaving Antarctica, he was told to remain in Chilean territory.

Guo, however, had to remain at the remote Chilean military base until just days ago for lack of any commercial flights serving Antarctica. He finally managed to return to continental territory last weekend aboard a Chilean navy icebreaker, disembarking Saturday at Punta Arenas.

Guo’s plane will remain in Antarctic territory until an agreement is reached for a Chilean pilot to fly it, according to his lawyer.

The influencer said Tuesday he remains committed to his fundraising mission for cancer research. The war against cancer is “a continuous battle that we all have to put our efforts into. And I’m just trying my best to do what I can to help,” Guo told reporters in Santiago.

Regarding his more than 60 days in Antarctica, he acknowledged that it was a “pretty hard” period.

“It definitely was a challenge but I think with every challenge there is an opportunity to learn,” he said.