Friendship Flight : Tony Circles the Globe : Long Flight to Arctic

Tony Aliengena flew his single-engine plane to this Arctic Circle outpost on Baffin Island on Wednesday, completing the Canadian leg of his trip around the world.

The grueling, 1,500-mile flight from Moncton, in Canada’s New Brunswick province, to Iqaluit, an Eskimo settlement due north, was the longest leg by far of Tony’s journey, which began June 5 in Orange County.

During the last two hours of the flight, Tony and his two chase planes flew over the icy Hudson Strait, and Tony caught his first glimpse of the North Atlantic, which he must cross next.

Although Tony was in the air for nearly nine hours Wednesday, he showed little sign of fatigue.

“Hey, we’re doing great,” he said during the flight, as adults in his group peered nervously downward.

Tony’s visit to Iqaluit was marred late Wednesday by a theft from his family’s hotel room. While the boy and his entourage dined on Caribou steak in a restaurant in the Frobisher Inn, where they are staying, someone broke into the family’s room and stole a bag containing Tony’s shirts and trousers, as well as camera equipment belonging to Soviet correspondent Aleksi Grinezich, one of two Russian journalists who are chronicling the world flight.

Initially, Tony’s father, Garry Aliengena, said he thought the burglar had stolen a bag containing $8,000 in cash, taken along for all trip expenses. He later discovered the money had not been taken but told a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is investigating the break-in: “I would expect this in Boston or L.A.”

RCMP Officer J. E. R. Cook replied: “This a lot worse then in Boston. Here, there is nothing to do but to beat each other up and break into each others homes.”

Within an hour after the break-in was discovered, Cook and another Mountie discovered a missing camera in the room of another hotel patron, and early Thursday began conducting a search of the small Eskimo village of 3,200 residents for an out-of-town guest with a history of break-ins. Cook said the suspect couldn’t have gone since Iqualit has no roads, is surrounded by icy water and the airfield operates commercial flights only in the daytime.

Hotel officials, who have provided rooms for Tony and his entourage free of charge and had picked him up at the airport, expressed embarrassment. “It has only happened once in the five years I’ve been here,” said Geza Demeny, manager of the Frobisher Inn.

To make amends, the management brought up a round of cold beers for the entourage, breaking a house rule of no alcohol in the rooms.

The flight was long but uneventful, with skies mostly calm and clear. But with the possibility of high-altitude freezing rain closing in today on Baffin Island, where Iqaluit is located, the 11-year-old aviator from San Juan Capistrano was faced with a possible delay in his attempted crossing of the Atlantic.

A low-pressure system was developing Wednesday out of the Arctic, bringing with it the potential for freezing rain. Canadian weather service officials in Moncton warned Tony’s flight crew to be

wary of venturing into such weather.

“This is a bad time for ice,” said Bill Bourke, officer in charge of the weather office at Moncton Airport. “There are extreme ice conditions up there.”