Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen, Denmark — Jan 15, 2026
The only aircraft capable of flying from Copenhagen to Nuuk was, according to the Greenlandic Inuit woman at the counter, likely "going to crash and burn or make an emergency landing in the sea" if they attempted takeoff. This was not the news we needed at 8:30 in the morning, especially after a long night of newsy rambling at some dimly lit dive bar in town. The gang was running on fumes.
Today’s gang is a bit different than the typical cohort of lunatics who roll with Channel 5 – most of whom are pulled from destitute corners of the American Southwest or rehabs of Los Angeles. I am currently traveling with Shane Smith, the founder of Vice News, as well as his most trusted producer and videographer. Together, the two of them have been imprisoned in Libya, stranded in North Korea, shared beers with cannibal warlords in Liberia and have navigated just about every other journalistic nightmare this world has to offer.
A botched flight to Nuuk was small potataz’ for these guys, as the Iowans say.
Within forty-five seconds of receiving the news, Shane’s producer was hosting two WhatsApp calls at the same time, holding an iPhone up to each ear like a frantic stockbroker moments after learning of the Great Recession, making demands of his ‘contacts’ – something we really don’t have here at Channel 5.
“Catastrophic mechanical failure?” he yelled in a working-class British accent. “It's a matter of life and death that we get to Greenland by nightfall, my man! How about you charter us a new flight for this afternoon or we see about hitching a ride with the Danish weapons convoy?”
I looked at Shane. He could tell I was in awe and clarified that we may very well be spending our afternoon on the steel floor of a military helicopter, crammed beneath crates of ammunition and AR-15s that are headed to Denmark’s military base in Greenland – a country that President Trump has vowed to annex as a U.S. territory despite it being a semi-sovereign nation within the Kingdom of Denmark.
“If I start day trading now, I can probably make enough for a private jet but it’s going to be pricey,” Shane said without a speck of sarcasm. Unreal. For all that’s been said about Vice’s ‘downfall,’ the lads have maintained a razor-sharp workflow when it comes to logistics.
Our arrival deadline is this Saturday at 2 p.m., where concerned citizens have organized the largest protest in Greenlandic history outside the U.S. Embassy in Nuuk, where diplomats have been ordered by Trump and Rubio to prepare for a “full-scale takeover’ of the arctic island. Troops from six NATO nations are currently being sent to stand in solidarity with Denmark, who still formally govern all of Greenland’s foreign affairs despite the island’s transition to self-governance in 2009.
“Alright,” Shane’s producer announced, “we’re booked for Saturday morning. Our plane lands thirty minutes before the protest. I’ve arranged a fixer to pick us up from the airport so we can roll in hot.”
I nodded in agreement, but deep down was convinced that our new plan would fall apart. This current Air Greenland fiasco was the third time in the last two weeks that our plans had been foiled by forces beyond our control.
The first was Iran.
We'd had everything lined up for Tehran. Visas secured. Second passports printed. Fixers in place. Someone from the Supreme Leader’s entourage who agreed to give us a tour of their secret, newly constructed nuclear reactor. Even a Linkin Park cover band whose acoustic concerts were apparently driving the morality police up a friggin’ wall.
Then we got a Signal call from our lead fixer, who spoke with the grave immediacy of a man who was not supposed to have called us, yet chose to do the right thing.
"Hello sir. If you come here on your expected arrival date, it is possible that you will be in danger.”
Danger? I called Shane shortly after, relatively unfazed. After all, it seemed like some element of danger was a prerequisite when traveling to a place that’d been teetering on the edge of total war with the United States for years.
“Dude, no. We cannot go to Iran,” Shane explained. “These fixers get paid a fuck-ton of money and stand to lose a lot of cash by having us back out at the last minute. He obviously knows something that we don’t. Let’s let it cool off and check back with him in a few weeks.”
Initially, I was a bit perturbed and wanted to take the risk anyway. Tehran, I figured, was a major cosmopolitan city where we’d be granted some degree of safety as journalists. Not like Gaza or North Korea, where anything can change from kosher to killjoy at a moment’s notice.
But as we scrambled to make arrangements for our next Greenland flight, it became clear that our fixer may have saved our lives. The headlines were grim. Two days after our initial expected arrival, anti-regime protests broke out in the streets. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded with lethal force. The official death toll as confirmed by human rights groups had crossed 6,500 souls. Some sources inside the country say it's closer to 12,000, most of whom were killed in a 48-hour span that transpired in conjunction with an internet blackout. A 26-year-old named Erfan Soltani was slated to be hanged tomorrow. His charge? "Moharebeh." War against God.
That hit me hard. I'm 28 and most certainly would have been on the frontlines. That's where the money shot is, after all. But I can't die in another country's civil war. I need to at least stick around until ours.
"Alright, Callaghan," Shane said after fifteen minutes of deliberation. "We're booked for the red eye in fifteen hours. But the bars at this airport aren't so bad. Make yourself at home."
No sleep til Nuuk!
AC