Doesn't quite match the IAF Cheetah record SAR lift, but well-done to the Mi-8 crew anyhow.
High-Flying Rescue In The Himalayas
Aeronews 10 Aug '05
Pakistani Helicopter Snags Climber at 19,500 Feet
It's thought to be the highest-altitude mountain rescue in history -- a Pakistani
Mi-8 climbed to approximately 19,500 feet to rescue Slovenian climber Tomaz Humar from a cliff on Nanga Parbat.
It was the end of a 72-hour life-or-death ordeal for Humar, who has made a number of attempts to climb the mountain. It's considered one of the most dangerous peaks in the Himalayas and the path Humar had taken has never been successfully climbed.
"We've been worried all along. He reported his sleeping bag and clothing getting wet and he says he's very cold at night," Nazir Sabir told the BBC Wednesday.
Humar had been trapped on the mountain by bad weather. As he was being pulled from the cliff by a rope attached to one of two Mi-8s that had been dispatched by the Pakistani Army, his own rope, attached to the mountainside, became snagged. Humar had to cut it before he could be lifted down the mountainside to his base camp.
"He is absolutely all right," military spokesman Col Atique Rehman told Reuters.
I/C
p.s. Oogle - are you a JH regular by any chance
