> Guo’s plane “does not have the capabilities to make a flight”

> The prosecutor’s office said Guo must also pay all costs for his “aircraft security and personal maintenance” during his stay at the military facility. He also needs to cover all expenses for his return.

They may be unwilling or unable to sell him 60 gallons of 100LL avgas. It's not like he's just pulling up to the FBO at a local airstrip. There are thousands of locations across the country and across the world where aviators can just land, taxi to a tiedown and fuel up, and take off...the Chilean military base in Antarctica is not one of those places.

Do you think the base has some outdoor tiedown locations in the Antarctic winter, or keeps hangar space available for recreational pilots? Are they going to requisition fuel from the mainland, or dip into their supplies? They may be looking at the weather and saying that he can't take off without deicing and engine temp control provisions that his Cessna 182 does not have. He needs to fly some 800 miles in an aircraft with about 1000 miles of range into Antarctic winter weather, he only has a few hours of daylight per day which may not be enough to fly VFR from Antarctica to Chile, depending on the winds through the notorious Drake Passage.

From the perspective of the base commander, there's a very young man (almost still a child) who is asking to buy the military's fuel as if it were for sale and asking him to change flight schedules and get permission from the tower to unwisely take off and put himself into a potentially lethal situation. The commander has probably refused the same requests from trainees with inadequate hours or certifications, or whose aircraft were not rated for the weather at the moment, and has managed to keep hundreds of his charges alive in a very hostile environment. "Teenager stranded at base" is not a headline he wants to publish, but "Teenager lost in Drake Passage after receiving fuel and takeoff clearance at base" is far, far worse.