Why Can't Helicopters Fly At High Altitudes? - Science ABC

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The reason why rescue operations aren’t carried out by helicopters is fairly simple: most helicopters aren’t actually designed to fly at such high altitudes. Due to the design of their engines, it’s beyond their operational capacity to undertake typical operational maneuvers, such as landing and hovering, in high-altitude conditions.

I recently watched Everest, a 2015 movie about the survival attempts of two separate groups stranded on Mount Everest – the tallest mountain on Earth. Without giving away too much of the plot, I’ll just say that the climbers struggle quite a bit in the course of their journey… obviously. In real life, many climbers do face great difficulties in returning safely to the base camp of Everest; many climbers actually die in the process.

The question is, why can’t climbers stranded at the top of mountain peaks be rescued by helicopters?

helicopter rescue in mountains
Rescue operations on very high mountain peaks using helicopters can be extremely challenging and risky (Image Source: Wikipedia.org)

Obviously, people more actively involved in mountaineering expeditions are smart enough to have thought about this issue. The reason why rescue operations aren’t carried out by helicopters is fairly simple: most helicopters aren’t actually designed to fly at such high altitudes. Due to the design of their engines, it’s beyond their operational capacity to undertake typical operational maneuvers, such as landing and hovering, in high-altitude conditions.

So, the real question is… why can’t helicopters fly at high altitudes? Well, before we get into the details of that, let’s try to understand a few things first.

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