Helicopter Archive - Adventure Mountain

10. June 202510. June 2025

Maurizio Folini – dangerous helicopter rescue flights on Mount Everest

View from the helicopter cockpit of the Western Cwm (Lhotse in the background)

“I can’t tell you how many missions I’ve flown per day. It’s not the numbers that are important to me, but the quality of the missions.” This statement says a lot about Maurizio Folini‘s character.

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’s highest mountains since 2011. In 2013, 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.

This Everest spring season, he has once again used his aircraft from the Nepalese company Kailash Helicopter Services to rescue many climbers suffering from high altitude sick from the mountain. “I flew a lot of missions in total. There were days when I landed six to eight times at Camp 2 (at 6,400 meters). On other days, I flew less,” says Maurizio.

25. March 202526. March 2025

Helicopter dispute in the Everest region: Business beats environmental protection in the Khumbu

Mingma Sherpa and his companions in the fight against the many helicopter flights in the Everest region feel let down. “Sadly, none of the politicians have talked about our movement,” writes the chairman of the Namche Youth Group, which had campaigned for an end to the many purely tourist flights in the Khumbu region, to me. “We honestly have no voice.”

Earlier this year, locals in the Khumbu had put up poles with prayer flags on the helipads all the way up to Gorak Shep, the last settlement before Everest Base Camp. As a result, the helicopter companies temporarily suspended all flights to the Everest region.

After a crisis meeting of all parties to the conflict at the end of January, at least the rescue flights were resumed. And the parties involved had expressed confidence that a solution would also be found to the controversial issue of purely commercial helicopter flights. Since then, there has been silence.

29. January 202529. January 2025

Helicopter rescue flights to the Everest region resume

Helicopter flying in the Khumbu region — Helicopter in the Khumbu region near Pangboche

There has been movement in the dispute over the large number of helicopter flights in the region around Mount Everest. Following a crisis meeting between the conflicting parties at the headquarters of the Solukhumbu district administration at the end of last week, the Airlines Operators Association of Nepal (AOAN) announced that it would resume helicopter rescue flights in the Khumbu region.

At the beginning of January, the AOAN had suspended all helicopter flights to the Everest region. The association was responding to protests by local organizations that had erected poles with prayer flags at helicopter landing sites in the Khumbu. The locals wanted to support the move by the Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality. The regional administration had banned commercial helicopter flights in the Sagarmatha National Park from 1 January and only allowed rescue flights by appointment.

13. January 202513. January 2025

Helicopter dispute in the Everest region: “The whole Khumbu is united”

Blockade of a helipad in the Everest Valley

“Enough is enough,” Mingma Sherpa, chairman of the Namche Youth Group, tells me. “We locals have never spoken out against helicopter companies in general. But we are against the unnecessary helicopter flights. Last year alone, there were about 6,000 flights from Lukla (the gateway to the Everest region) to the Khumbu Valley. That’s too many for Sagarmatha National Park.”

1. March 202411. March 2024

Mount Everest: Tracking chip mandatory

Who is where on Mount Everest? In future, it should also be possible to answer this question electronically. As reported this week by Indian media and now also by the US television channel CNN, from this spring onwards, summit contenders will be required to carry a tracking chip with them. The chips, which cost between 10 and 15 dollars and are manufactured in Europe, are to be sewn into the down jackets of the mountaineers.