About 7 a.m. on the morning of 13 May 1996 we heard the distant sound of an approaching helicopter. These machines had constantly flown into Base Camp during the previous weeks and it became a game to see who could spot the aircraft first. The sound of its engines always reached us long before we got our first glimpse.
As the helicopter circled Base Camp, I still had my doubts about its ability to lift the casualties to the valley from the top of the Icefall. After the helicopter landed on the prepared area at the bottom of the camp, and under the instruction of the pilot Colonel Madan, we helped to lift all removable items from the interior of the Squirrel aircraft to reduce the weight to an absolute minimum.
Above us, at first light, Beck and Makalu had been helped down the Western Cwm. Makalu, who was unable to walk, was put on a plastic stretcher and dragged down the cwm. Getting him across the bridges was difficult, but the Sherpas who brought him down worked with the satisfaction that this was a life plucked from death. Those in front crossed and held the ropes taught as the stretcher was guided over the ladders that spanned the gaps.
Beck was able to stumble down despite his horrific injuries and he was helped by some of those who had played such an important role in the overall rescue during the last two days.
At the bottom of the Western Cwm, close to Camp 1, Kool-Aid was used to mark the point where the helicopter was to land to pick up Beck and Makalu.
From below we saw the Squirrel disappear into the cwm, but then it almost immediately reappeared – Colonel Madan was clearly taking no chances. He spent several minutes judging the wind direction and reconnoitring the proposed landing site. Landing would not be too difficult – my helicopter flying instructor had always told me that landings were always, in effect, controlled crashes – but taking off would be much more difficult at that height with the extra weight.
At last Colonel Madan committed himself to the landing and he made his approach to the selected landing site. Makalu was placed first in the helicopter and Colonel Madan lifted slightly to make full use of the ground cushion which was being created by the air being sucked down through the rotor blades on to the snow. He crept forward and gradually increased speed so that the airflow over the blades would create lift. As he got to the lip of the cwm he was able to safely fly downwards to create extra speed and, in doing so, extra lift. It was a remarkable feat of flying at the edge of the capability of the helicopter he was piloting.
With some relief we watched the Squirrel spiralling down to us and as it landed we rushed forward to help unload Makalu. At the same time the watching LOs who had waited at the helicopter landing point also rushed forward, but not to help Makalu. Instead they lined up in front of the helicopter while a co-opted Sherpa took their photograph. This summarised more clearly than anything the role the group of Nepalese liaison officers played during the rescue.
Makalu was wrapped up and was breathing oxygen and it was impossible to tell just how bad he was. The joy of his fellow team members at Base Camp was evident and Makalu’s fellow Taiwanese Base Camp manager, who had lost all his fingers during their training climb on McKinley, grasped my hand between his two stumps and pumped my hand vigorously.
While Makalu sat on the side of the landing site the helicopter returned to pick up Beck. This time Colonel Madan was less cautious with his approach and within minutes he had landed back at Base Camp with Beck. We loaded Makalu into the back of the helicopter and replaced the various items we had removed in order to lighten the aircraft not long before. Shortly afterwards, the helicopter lifted skywards, and Makalu and Beck were on their way to Kathmandu.
Despite some teams not taking part in the rescue and the completely unhelpful part played by the Nepalese liaison officers, for those who did selflessly play their part, the rescue of Beck and Makalu meant a great deal. Now the grieving for lost friends could start.
My last task at Base Camp when all the teams had returned was to chair a meeting where we discussed how the other teams could replace the oxygen which the IMAX team had donated to the rescue. And then it was time to leave – my chest condition was now so bad there was no chance of me going high again. I felt nothing, neither sadness, nor disappointment or any other conceivable emotion. I just wanted to return to my home, where I would be able to make some sense of what had happened.
Within a period of a little over six years after the tragedy, a further seven climbers who were on the south side of Everest that year were to die. The first of these deaths happened on 25 May 1996.
After the departure of most of the teams, the South Africans made a summit attempt in late May, which yet again caused controversy. In O’Dowd’s words she, Woodall and Herrod left Camp 4 at around midnight on the night of 24–25 May, together with three Sherpas. After an uneventful climb, Woodall and O’Dowd both reached the summit – according to their own reports at 10 a.m., accompanied by one of their three Sherpas. O’Dowd later said that on the descent they passed the other two Sherpas just before the South Summit, and Bruce Herrod just after they came over the top of the South Summit. They had a talk with Herrod, before he continued upwards. It should take about two hours for a healthy and fit climber to reach the top from the South Summit, but, for reasons which will never be known, Bruce didn’t get there until 5 p.m. We will never know what happened next, but Bruce’s body was found a year later hanging on the ropes at the Hillary Step.
Woodall received some criticism for not trying hard enough to turn Herrod around, but given how much Bruce wanted to reach the top, it would have been difficult to stop him. What I think is more questionable is how Woodall organised his Sherpas. There were three climbers and three Sherpas, and it would have been appropriate and sensible with the availability of such a perfect ratio of Sherpas to climbers to allocate one Sherpa to support each of the climbers. This ratio of one Sherpa to one climber was far better than will be found in most teams on Everest, and given the lack of experience amongst the South African team and what had happened some two weeks earlier during the storm, it would have been such a simple thing to have got right. Instead, the order in which they went to the summit, with Woodall out in front with a Sherpa, followed some way behind by O’Dowd on her own, with two Sherpas more than an hour behind her, followed some way behind by Herrod, demonstrated inexperience and arguably a lack of respect for what they were facing. It is not clear what happened when the second and third Sherpas passed Herrod on their way back from the mountain, which must have been very late in the climbing day, but we do know that Bruce reached the summit at 5 p.m. with no chance of getting far down the mountain before day turned to night.
In September 1996, during the post-monsoon climbing season on Everest, Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa become the second of the climbers who had survived the Everest storm to subsequently die. Whilst working for a Japanese expedition, he was swept to his death in an avalanche high on the Lhotse Face, along with two other mountaineers.
One of the questions I was asked on my return from the mountain, by several ill-informed members of the media, was ‘should climbing on Everest be more controlled?’ Of course, they were referring to the reports that some of the climbers lacked the necessary experience and should, therefore, have not been allowed to climb the mountain. But perhaps the tragedy was a result of climbing having already become too controlled by commercial interests. Climbers had, in effect, been herded up the mountain instead of being able to break into small groups of climbers who could climb at a similar speed. The idea that climbers, particularly in large groups, can be guided to the top of the world’s highest mountain, took a knock that day.
The very nature of the tragedy, with all those involved spread over the mountain, has led to a number of conflicting views – and I acknowledge that mine is just one of them, developed from my own experiences recorded in my diary at the time and what others told me of their experiences. That there were different interpretations of events should not be surprising, these were men and women fighting for their lives in extreme circumstances and others were viewing what was happening from different parts of an 8,848-metre-high mountain. If they had all viewed the same events, at the same time, from the same place on the mountain, as they moved together in one group up and down the route, maybe a more accurate picture of events that day could have been put together. But they didn’t, and the inevitable result was the creation of different opinions.
There were two elements which I believe led to the tragedy that day. One was the weather, the other was a decision-making process which, once started, could not be halted, because humans often still don’t know when to turn back in order to live another day – a similar trait which led to deaths in the Fastnet storm some seventeen years before.
Audrey Salkeld, later in an article titled ‘Emergency on Everest’ in the Alpine Journal, was to generously say, ‘The only good thing to come out of the whole tragic business is the wonderful co-operation that so quickly built up among the rescuers, and the superb co-ordination notably by Helen Wilton, Guy Cotter and Mike Trueman at Base and the mountaineers on the mountain.’
There is no doubt that there were many brave acts high on the mountain, but we were, in my view, simply there to support those above.
On my return from Everest I grieved and then got on with my life and made plans for further expeditions.