In 2004 Impact's International Safety Advisor and Mountain Guide, Phil Poole led an expedition to the Watkins mountains of east Greenland.  With Phil's guidance his group successfully climbed Gunnbjørnsfjeld, the highest summit in the Arctic circle. Phil also led the group up the second and third highest mountains - Dome and Cone. The team then went on to make a number of first ascents of nearby summits and the second ascent and first ski descent of a mountain called Outpost.

He returned to Greenland a few months later with the US Navy as Arctic Guide for an expedition to recover the remains of service men from a crashed aircraft over 40 years ago.

 

The P-2V Neptune patrol aircraft disappeared over the North Atlantic during a routine reconnaissance mission on January 12, 1962. The Navy initially believed the aircraft crashed at sea until August 1966, when a British geologic survey team discovered the wreckage on the glacier. One month later, the Navy sent a recovery unit to bring home the remains and destroy sensitive onboard equipment. A two-to-three foot snow blizzard during the recovery operation limited the recovery effort. After forensic analysis of the recovered remains, the Navy determined that only 7 of the 12 air crew were recovered.

 

In 1995, the Navy received photographs from a helicopter pilot from Greenland Air indicating that remains were still present. In June and July 2004, after thorough planning and monitoring of the wreckage site through satellite photography, the recovery team found a three-week window of ideal weather conditions to conduct a second, more thorough search of the site. Cadaver dogs, MK-26 ground penetrating radar and Arctic guides were instrumental in the success of this mission.