Current Events > 6 people killed after Mount Everest tourist helicopter crashes

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.wral.com/story/helicopter-with-6-on-board-including-tourists-is-missing-near-mount-everest-in-nepal/20948717/

At least six people were killed after a helicopter carrying foreign tourists crashed Tuesday near Mount Everest in Nepal. The helicopter crashed in the Lamajura area and rescuers had recovered the bodies of five people and had to originally search for the sixth, said Basanta Bhattarai, the chief government administrator in the area. All five tourists were Mexican nationals and the pilot was Nepalese, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement. The Mexicans included two men and three women. The aircraft was returning to the capital Kathmandu on Tuesday morning after bringing the tourists on a sightseeing trip to the worlds highest peak. Weather conditions had caused the helicopter's planned flight route to be changed, airport official Sagar Kadel said. It is common for flights to be delayed and routes changed during the monsoon season amid heavy rains. The tourist and mountaineering season ended in May with the onset of the rainy season and tourist flights to the mountains are less common this time of year as visibility is poor and weather conditions become unpredictable.

You could not pay me to get into a helicopter.

Sounds like a rather stupid set of circumstances, donnit?

pretzelcoatl posted...

You could not pay me to get into a helicopter.

This situation ended badly but helicopters can be safe. It like saying you never want to board a plane after hearing one crashed.

It might be an appropriate time to start second guessing our means of flying being safe if it's weather conditions that are so problematic. I'll at least try to avoid anything that comes close to a mountain or piece of land. That said, it already wasn't a good season for this trip to take place.

Anyways, RIP to those on board.

Darn, two things I'd have loved to do (titanic, everest) had deaths within 30 days of each other. This has for to be the biggest "don't do it" sign ever hahaha.

It says "near Everest" so they'll probably be able to recover the bodies if there are any, but like.. the folks that actually died ON Everest... there's no safe way of getting a lot of them down, so there's just like 200 frozen dead people up there, and apparently the folks who go all the way up there have to pass by all these frozen mummies to get there.

They look like they just decided to take a nap there in the snow.

^ yeah I've seen that, it's pretty grim. They often use them as reference points, "make a turn on the red corpse" kinda thing.