Helicopter lands on summit of Everest

There were rumours in mid-May that a helicopter had been spotted near the summit of Everest. These rumours have just been confirmed by EUROCOPTER, maker of the Ecureuil/AStar AS 350 B3 helicopter, that on 14 May, pilot Didier Delsalle landed on the summit of Mount Everest (8,850m) for 2 minutes. It's not clear how this particular helicopter managed to fly so high in the thin air, but it is evident that many test flights had been carried out. These included landing at the South Col (c8,000m) on 12 May, beating the previous record of 7,670m, held by a Cheetah helicopter. Test flights in April at Istres, France, recorded the chopper flying to an altitude of 8,992m. Could we see tourist flights to the summit in the not-too-distant future?

This post has been read 3,734 times

Return to Latest News


25 May, 2005
Beam me up Scotty
25 May, 2005
25 May, 2005
ye reckon?
25 May, 2005
DOubt they could take another person in it...
25 May, 2005
You cannot beat the ultimate, the highest landing unless you pile something up even higher for it to land on. If you read the link it says they have flown to 33000 ft but they had nowhere to land that high up.
More Comments
Loading Notifications...
Facebook Twitter Copy Email