MELBOURNE Australia AP A helicopter rescue team on Tuesday reached a three-man television crew that had been stranded on a remote Arctic island for more than six weeks rescuers said. The helicopter sent by the international medical emergency company AEA International SOS landed on frozen Wrangel Island at about 3 p.m. local time 0200 GMT said Mark Crawford the company's spokesman in Australia. ``They're in fair spirits'' Crawford said of the crew which includes a Russian a Japanese and an Australian. ``They're surviving of course but they were down to their last three days of food.'' The crew Australian cameraman Rory McGuinness; Tatsuhko Kobayashi a producer with NHK Japan's national broadcaster; and Russian scientist Nikita Ovsyanikov arrived on Wrangel Island on Sept. 2 to make a documentary about polar bears. The trio had intended to leave Oct. 15 but was delayed by bad weather which also prevented a helicopter rescue by Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry. The three had been holed up in a cabin on the island's northeast coast about 550 kilometers 350 miles west of Alaska. As the crew's food supplies dwindled residents of a Russian village about 130 kilometers 80 miles from the hut tried to drive a snow tractor carrying emergency supplies to the crew. But that effort also was frustrated by the weather. The temperature in the area had been around minus 30 Celsius minus 22 Fahrenheit with a strong wind. The crew had a diesel generator a computer a cellular phone and access to e-mail but was running low on fuel news reports said. Crawford said the trio would be flown to the Russian mainland at Pevek. The rescue was extremely difficult given the remoteness of the area he said. Crawford said his company had been hired to conduct the rescue by the filmmakers' employer Natural History Pty. Ltd. in New Zealand. UR; rs/txw APW19981201.0010.txt.body.html APW19981201.1456.txt.body.html