With roads and bridges severed, helicopters became the main rescue lifeline
Pilots said the missions were tougher than Everest-season flying, with wrong coordinates, landing spots buried under mud, crowded skies, drones and false rescue alerts complicating operations.
Nepal’s first female helicopter Captain Priya Adhikari, flew around 100 rescue missions. She described navigating a narrow valley with up to 20 helicopters at once while evacuating survivors Captain Maniraj Lama of Kailash Helicopter said the missions changed by the day. After one claim that people were stranded in forests around Ghattekhola, national emergency operations centre chief Phanindra Prasad Poudel said, “We even had a helicopter hold the area for 19 minutes.
Talking to TOI at Maithili Barracks, where choppers were taking off and landing in Trishuli Bazaar, Captain Bimal Sharma of Simrik Air said Everest flights, despite the altitude, were more predictable. Here, he said, coordinates often did not match and pilots sometimes reached places where the landing ground itself had vanished. Civil aviation authority of Nepal joint spokesperson Gyanendra Bhul said pilots relied on visual separation and direct communication. “Right now, the biggest challenge for helicopters there is from those drones,” he said.
“Even during the climbing season on Everest, it’s still busy, but there’s a clear goal of where to go and what to do. “We have to search around. In some places where we were asked to land, there was no place to do that. Initially, choppers carried doctors and rescuers in and survivors out. They then shifted to food and relief drops; later, as bodies began decomposing at inaccessible sites, crews started lifting some by longline beneath the helicopter. Drones added another hazard. False alerts became a recurring drain on flying time. Old and unverified videos kept circulating for days, repeatedly sending helicopters and drones towards places where nobody was found. We also monitored it with drones. But nothing was found there.”
