An Italian rescue helicopter of Italy has crashed high up on Monte Rosa, on the Swiss-Italian border. Miraculously, no one on board was injured.
The helicopter was responding to an SOS when it crashed on Monte Rosa’s upper glacier, right under the Capanna Margherita refuge. At 4,556m, it is the highest mountain hut in Europe.
The helicopter left Borgosesia to help a mountaineer who had fallen into a crevasse on the glacier.
“We were on Monte Rosa, more or less at 4,500 meters and everything was going well, when suddenly we heard a thud,” Paolo Pettinaroli, a passenger in the helicopter, told Corriere della Sera. “It happened in a moment. We didn’t understand, I don’t know what happened. We had arrived. But the helicopter was destroyed.”
The wrecked helicopter on the Monte Rosa glacier. Photo: Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico Piemonte – CNSAS
Pettinarolo told the Italian paper that despite their brush with death, the rescuers managed to get the climber out of the crevasse. He was also unharmed and could continue on his own with his partners.
Afterward, a helicopter from Zermatt picked up the rescuers and brought them down to the valley. The helicopter crew was then taken to the hospital for routine tests, which confirmed that they were all fine.
Check a video of the fallen helicopter on the mountain here.
Monte Rosa is the largest massif of the Alps range. Its highest point, 4,634m Point Dufour, is the second highest peak in western Europe after Mont Blanc.
