'Rescue me' email from polar Briton

A British North Pole explorer has been plucked from danger today after using his mobile phone to guide a plane to his rescue.

Dave Mill used his sledge to mark out a 400 metre runway in the ice floe where he had become marooned. Then he photographed the runway and emailed a digital picture of it to a rescue team in Canada.

The Scottish-born explorer had been trying to make history by walking to the North Pole in 60 days without any back-up, after a similar attempt failed last year.

He became stranded on an ice floe miles from land. That threatened almost certain death: within a week the tidal pull of the full moon would have torn the flat ice expanse into a treacherous stretch of miniature ice mountains, making it impossible for a plane to land.

Backers who were tracking his progress via satellite phone became increasingly concerned for his safety and called in the Canadian rescue team, but it was Mill's brainwave to email an image of his landing strip.

The only hurdle left is taking off from the ice floe successfully, but a spokesman for Mill said he was optimistic that all would go according to plan as the pilot has 26 years' flying experience in the Arctic.

If all goes to plan the plane is due to touch down in Resolute Bay, Canada, between 9am and 10am today. A spokesman for his North Pole expedition said the explorer was "tired but euphoric". "Dave is incredibly happy to be coming off the ice. He is in no doubt that his mobile phone saved his life" said his spokesman.

Mill, 34, had completed 200 miles of his 500-mile trek from land at Ward Hunt Island, Canada's most northerly point. His trek had been dogged by misfortune. Within days of leaving base camp, he had to return after his stove broke. His sunglasses and boots have broken and he has twice fallen into freezing water.

He also feared a polar bear was close to his tent. He was hampered by the disintegration of ice sheets into smaller floes, which he blamed on global warming.

In a message, he said: "I do not see what has happened as a failure. I am effectively trapped between fields of ice rubble and open water. As an unaided, unsupported explorer I have no one to help me - no support team, no drops from aircraft, no resupplies."