A 20-year-old American pilot and content creator who had been stranded at a Chilean base on King George Island off Antarctica for more than two months after the authorities detained him there was released this weekend, according to one of his lawyers.
The pilot, Ethan Guo, was 19 when he started a fund-raising campaign for cancer research that involved trying to fly solo to all seven continents, documenting his efforts on social media.
He was detained on June 28 and effectively stranded after the authorities accused him of landing his cherry-red and white single-engine Cessna on King George Island without authorization.
After his release, he arrived in Punta Arenas on the Chilean mainland and then traveled to Santiago with his Chilean lawyer, Jaime Barrientos, according to a statement on Sunday from Sean Croft, one of Mr. Guo’s lawyers in New York.
Mr. Guo left the Chilean base on a Navy ship, the Almirante Viel, Mr. Croft said.
“He is in good spirits and is looking forward to returning to the United States as soon as possible,” Mr. Croft said. It was not immediately clear if he was released on Saturday or Sunday.
Mr. Guo’s release came nearly a month after a Chilean judge approved a deal to dismiss his case under the conditions that Mr. Guo pay $30,000 to a children’s cancer charity and that he does not re-enter the country for three years.
Mr. Croft said that Mr. Guo was not paying any penalty or fine, nor making any admission of guilt, and that as a condition of the agreement, he would make a donation to an unspecified Chilean charity.
Mr. Guo, who lives in Florida, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Mr. Guo had been chronicling his trip around the world on TikTok, where he has more than 655,000 followers, and on Instagram, where he has 1.4 million followers.
He obtained his pilot’s license at 17 and sought to fly solo in a small aircraft to all seven continents in order to raise funds for cancer research, according to his website. He had set a goal to raise $1 million.
On his social media accounts, Mr. Guo shared stories of flying to different cities and meeting cancer patients. He said his mission was inspired by a cousin with Stage 4 blood cancer.
In an interview last month, Mr. Guo said that Antarctica was the only continent where he had not landed.
But Mr. Guo did not alert aviation officials when he flew his Cessna 182Q across the Southern Ocean and landed at a Chilean airstrip on King George Island, according to prosecutors.
The authorities said that he landed there without permission and that he had submitted “false flight plan data.” Prosecutors accused him of violating Chilean aviation regulations and jeopardizing public safety.
Prosecutors said last month that they were investigating his flight and were trying to “explore an alternative outcome to the case.”
While his case was being worked out, Mr. Guo was stranded for weeks. A single room in a Chilean air force barracks with unreliable Wi-Fi became his temporary home.
He survived by eating breakfasts of bread and a teaspoon of butter, and lunches and dinners that included beans, lentil soup and pasta. Mr. Guo said last month that he had lost 20 pounds.
A Chilean judge approved a deal last month to dismiss the case after Mr. Guo’s lawyers provided prosecutors with flight records, air traffic control recordings and other evidence to support Mr. Guo’s account.
Mr. Guo’s immediate plan was to return to the United States, according to Mr. Croft. He said his office was working with the Chilean authorities to arrange for another authorized pilot to fly Mr. Guo’s plane from Antarctica back to the mainland.
“We are hopeful he can be reunited with it soon,” Mr. Croft said.
Johnny Diaz is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news from Miami.
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