Two men were rescued from Alaska's Mount St. Elias this spring in a daring HH-60G PAVE HAWK helicopter mission that called for landing and takeoff at 14,500 feet from a precarious patch of snow.
The high-risk, mission was described as record setting for the H-60, beating by 100 feet a rescue at Mt. McKinley in 1991.
A PAVE HAWK and an HC-130N rescue tanker from the 210 Rescue Squadron, Kulis Air National Guard Base in Anchorage, flew to the scene after a snowboard expedition went badly wrong.
Two snowboarders perished after an accident near the mountain's summit. Two survivors stamped out a message in the snow saying "TWO DEAD TWO NEED RESCUE," which was spotted by a passing civil aircraft.
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Sikorsky Lifeline