The Airplane
A Cessna airplane, known the world over. Reliable, easy to fly - great airplanes for the casual / hobby pilot. But their Cessna 206 is tiny compared with commercial airplanes and it was never designed to go to the Arctic.
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They don't have the range needed - their airplane can only carry enough fuel for one way from Longyearbyen to the North Pole. If they can't land at the North Pole and re-fuel then they don't come back.
The navigation system doesn't work above 70 degrees north: it's so inaccurate above those latitudes that it is disabled by the nav system manufacturer. Yet of course the North Pole is 90 degrees north and in fact almost all of the route from Longyearbyen to the North Pole is above 70 degrees north.
And even the compass is of no use - it points at magnetic north which is hundreds of miles from their destination of geographic north [the true north pole].
The radios won't work that far from land - the range is only around 80 miles at most.
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And of course, it only has one engine. Not much fun if it fails.
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