<P> In May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station, North Pole - 1, was established by Soviet scientists by air 20 kilometres (13 mi) from the North Pole . The expedition members: oceanographer Pyotr Shirshov, meteorologist Yevgeny Fyodorov, radio operator Ernst Krenkel, and the leader Ivan Papanin conducted scientific research at the station for the next nine months . By 19 February 1938, when the group was picked up by the ice breakers Taimyr and Murman, their station had drifted 2850 km to the eastern coast of Greenland . </P> <P> In May 1945 an RAF Lancaster of the Aries expedition became the first Commonwealth aircraft to overfly the North Geographic and North Magnetic Poles . The plane was piloted by David Cecil McKinley of the Royal Air Force . It carried an 11 - man crew, with Kenneth C. Maclure of the Royal Canadian Air Force in charge of all scientific observations . In 2006, Maclure was honoured with a spot in Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame . </P> <P> Discounting Peary's disputed claim, the first men to set foot at the North Pole were a Soviet party including geophysicists Mikhail Ostrekin and Pavel Senko, oceanographers Mikhail Somov and Pavel Gordienko, and other scientists and flight crew (24 people in total) of Aleksandr Kuznetsov's Sever - 2 expedition (March--May 1948). It was organized by the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route . The party flew on three planes (pilots Ivan Cherevichnyy, Vitaly Maslennikov and Ilya Kotov) from Kotelny Island to the North Pole and landed there at 4: 44pm (Moscow Time, UTC + 04: 00) on 23 April 1948 . They established a temporary camp and for the next two days conducted scientific observations . On 26 April the expedition flew back to the continent . </P> <P> Next year, on 9 May 1949 two other Soviet scientists (Vitali Volovich and Andrei Medvedev) became the first people to parachute onto the North Pole . They jumped from a Douglas C - 47 Skytrain, registered CCCP H - 369 . </P>

Who made it to the north pole first