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<\/a>\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many missions I\u2019ve flown per day. It\u2019s not the numbers that are important to me, but the quality of the missions.\u201d This statement says a lot about Maurizio Folini<\/a>\u2018s character.<\/p>\n The 59-year-old Italian is not only a helicopter pilot with heart and soul, but also a passionate mountain rescuer. Folini has been flying regular missions on the world\u2019s highest mountains<\/a> since 2011. In 2013<\/a>, he achieved the highest helicopter rescue of all time on Mount Everest when he transported a Nepalese mountaineer down from 7,800 meters on a longline.<\/p>\n This Everest spring season, he has once again used his aircraft from the Nepalese company Kailash Helicopter Services<\/a> to rescue many climbers suffering from high altitude sick from the mountain. \u201cI flew a lot of missions in total. There were days when I landed six to eight times at Camp 2 (at 6,400 meters)<\/em>. On other days, I flew less,\u201d says Maurizio.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lakpa Sherpa<\/a>, who has been working on the highest mountain on earth for over 20 years, has an overview of the air traffic on the south side of Everest \u2013 also as an experienced mountain rescuer: Lakpa has completed courses in Italy, Austria and Switzerland. He describes himself as the \u201cofficial mayor of Everest Base Camp\u201d. He also coordinates the helicopter rescue flights up the mountain for the local infirmary, the Everest ER<\/a>. \u201cThere have been more than 50 rescue flights this season,\u201d Lakpa writes to me. \u201cAll in all, there were around 120 flights above the base camp.\u201d<\/p>\n Officially, helicopter use is only permitted for rescue purposes \u2013 and for some years now, by government decree, also for transporting materials up to Camp 2 at 6,400 meters. In recent years, however, there have also been isolated reports of climbers being flown out of Camp 2 by helicopter under the pretext of a medical emergency. In the spring season of 2023, the Hungarian mountaineer Szilard Suhajda<\/a> \u2013 who later died<\/a> while attempting to climb Everest without bottled oxygen and without a Sherpa companion \u2013 reported that individual climbers had also been flown from base camp to Camp 2 by helicopter that year \u2013 for 4,000 dollars.<\/p>\n Helicopter flights at such high altitudes are extremely demanding for people and equipment. The \u201cthin\u201d air, or rather the drop in air pressure with altitude, ensures that the oxygen partial pressure also drops. This is the pressure at which oxygen is forced into the lungs.<\/p>\n The low oxygen partial pressure can not only lead to life-threatening forms of high altitude sickness, but also to dizziness, difficulty concentrating and slower reactions. A helicopter pilot on Everest cannot afford any of this, as his aircraft is also at its limit in the thin air.<\/p>\n The performance of the engines drops, as does the overall lift of the helicopter. This is why as much weight as possible is avoided. \u201cWe always fly with very little kerosene so that the helicopter is light, so fuel management is difficult,\u201d Maurizio explains to me. From an altitude of around 4,000 meters, he uses supplemental oxygen, \u201ceither via a nasal cannula or a proper breathing mask,\u201d says Folini. Another risk factor on Everest that is difficult to calculate is the weather, which can change within minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 2025 season was characterized by rather bad weather,\u201d the Italian helicopter pilot sums up. \u201cThe conditions on the mountain were good, but the many bad weather conditions took their toll on mountaineers, mountain rescuers and helicopter pilots. Fortunately, there were relatively few fatalities compared to previous years.\u201d<\/p>\n Five people lost their lives this Everest season, three of them on the mountain. The fact that there have not been more is also due to the selfless efforts of the rescue teams on the mountain, in the air and at base camp: the Climbing Sherpas, who sometimes carry their sick clients down, the helicopter pilots who fly the patients to base camp and doctors like Ashish Lohani<\/a>, who look after the sick in the Everest ER.<\/p>\n \u201cThe collaboration works very well,\u201d says Maurizio. \u201cI have coordinated many rescues with Dr. Ashish. Even a resuscitation of a patient that I brought down from an altitude of 7,200 meters with the longline. A few minutes later, the patient was in the hands of Dr. Ashish. After an hour in the Everest ER medical tent, he was flown by helicopter to Lukla and then to the CIWEC hospital<\/a> in Kathmandu.\u201d<\/p>\n Ashish Lohani counted around 800 treatments in the Everest ER this spring, as he told me. Most of the cases were high altitude coughs or respiratory infections.<\/p>\n When Maurizio Folini makes his way from base camp up to Western Cwm, the \u201cValley of Silence\u201d, in his helicopter, the illnesses are usually far more dangerous. \u201cThere was slightly less frostbite and snow blindness than in other years,\u201d says the pilot. Almost all of the patients he flew suffered from high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE<\/a>), says Maurizio: \u201cProbably also because many people are not properly prepared or their bodies are not suited to the extreme altitude. The use of rather a lot of bottled oxygen (five bottles per client) makes everything seem easier. But then the body can react differently than expected.\u201d<\/p>\n With HAPE, water collects in the mountaineer\u2019s lungs. The disease can be fatal, and the sick person must be brought to lower altitudes as quickly as possible. This can be done in a few minutes by helicopter. But each of these rescues is a risk for the pilot due to the dangerous conditions on the mountain. Especially above Camp 2, where the helicopter can no longer land and from where the sick or injured have to be flown down to the valley with a long rescue line.<\/p>\n \n120 helicopter flights above the base camp<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Helicopter and pilot at the limit<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\u201cFortunately, relatively few fatalities\u201d<\/h2>\n
Poorly prepared or not suited to the altitude<\/h2>\n