Photograph (PHO00524)

For Use Wedneday, August 16, 1967 with story: 1,500 tons airlifted over Andes to Peruvian jungles; The mighty Peruvian Andes have been conquered again, in line with a plan for the country's industrial development. An Alaska Airlines propjet Hercules, produced by Lockheed Georgia Company (Marietta, GA, USA), crossed the Andes 94 times in a month - day and night --flying 327 miles from Lima's International Airport to the dirt airstrip, Zorrillos, in the jungles of eastern Peru. It transported heavy machinery and pipe, part of special drilling equipment acquired by El Grupo Aguaytia to drill for additional gas reserves in the country's jungle depths. The Aguaytia Group is a consortium of seven Peruvian, United States, German and Canadian petroleum companies, with Mobil Oil Company del Peru in charge of operations. The oil drilling equipment was specially designed (by Parker Drilling Company of Tulsa, OK) so it can be lifted in two-ton sections by Bell 204B helicopters to the actual drilling operations 40 miles from Zorrillos. For Alaska airlines and its Hercules, this was somewhat of a duplication of airlifting oil rigs to the Northern Slope of Alaska - though under different climatic and terrain conditions.

Photo by: Lockheed Georgia Company (Marietta, GA) - Photo No. 5797-18