A routine morning hop in the Himalayas turned deadly on Tuesday when two helicopters collided while trying to land at the same helipad below Mount Everest, killing an Indian tourist and injuring others, officials in Nepal said.
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What happened at Pheriche
The collision happened at around 8:10 to 8:15 a.m. local time at Pheriche, a trekking stop roughly 12 km (7 miles) south of Everest Base Camp, according to the BBC and Nepali police. The Kathmandu Post puts the helipad at about 4,371 metres in Solukhumbu district.
According to a Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal statement reported by the Kathmandu Post, a Fishtail Air AS350 carrying two foreign passengers had taken off from Gorakshep, while an Air Dynasty AS350 was on a cargo flight from Lukla. "It appears the accident happened when two helicopters... attempted to land at the same spot," authority spokesman Gyanendra Bhul told the BBC.
The Kathmandu Post reported that a widely shared video shows the Fishtail Air helicopter descending rapidly, and that the Air Dynasty helicopter's rotor blades struck the windows of the Fishtail cabin while both were still two to three metres off the ground. The paper called it what is believed to be Nepal's first mid-air helicopter collision.
The victims
Fishtail Air named the man killed as Vasanth Kumar Balaramudu, the BBC reported. Hindustan Times and Solukhumbu police said he was a 47-year-old from Chennai, India. Officials quoted by Hindustan Times said he died at the scene.
The injured passenger, Shailesh Krishna Patel, is a New Zealand citizen of Indian origin, according to the Kathmandu Post and Hindustan Times. The Fishtail Air pilot was also hurt, and both were flown to a hospital in the Kathmandu Valley. Police told The Annapurna Express the Air Dynasty pilot was also taken for treatment, and Hindustan Times reported he had minor injuries. Air Dynasty told the BBC its lone crew member was not injured.
What caused it?
Officials say it is too early to know. Weather has been largely ruled out: Solukhumbu official Kaman Singh Thapa Magar told Hindustan Times "the weather was clear at that time" and suggested a possible technical glitch. Civil Aviation Authority director general Mukesh Dangol told the Kathmandu Post that preliminary reports point to "miscommunication between the pilots, as the area is outside the coverage of Lukla Airport's air traffic control tower and pilots have to communicate with each other." An investigation is underway, AP and Nepal Police said.
The crash adds to long-running worries about how crowded the skies over the Everest region have become, with helicopters ferrying trekkers, cargo and rescue patients through some of the most demanding flying conditions on Earth.
