13 Oct 2014

Ruapehu rescue a team effort - pilot

11:06 am on 13 October 2014

The rescue of four men who had fallen off a cliff on Mt Ruapehu yesterday was a tricky operation helped by the professionalism of ski patrollers, the rescue pilot says.

Four people were airlifted off Mt Ruapehu.

Four people were airlifted off Mt Ruapehu. Photo: Greenlea Rescue Helicopter

The men fell down a 10m cliff and then slipped 200m down a slope after skiing out of grounds.

One of the men is in Auckland's Middlemore Hospital with spinal injuries and another is in Rotorua Hospital. A third man has been discharged from Rotorua Hospital, while the fourth man escaped with minor injuries.

Greenlea Helicopter pilot Nat Every said it was a beautiful day and he would have done a similar thing had he out skiing himself.

"I think essentially it was a bunch of chaps who had ventured outside the ski area boundary, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do on a lovely day like yesterday," he told Morning Report.

"During the course of their descent, they ended up in a little area that manifested in a chute, and by the time they were on their way down they really found themselves in a position where there was no escape and it got icy and they slipped fell over this bank at the bottom."

Patrollers from the local ski area found the men and prepared them for airlifting, including getting them "packaged" on backboards.

"So our job was made a lot easier by the professionalism of the ski patrollers and the fantastic job they do in venturing outside ski area boundaries to help these people out," Mr Every said.

"But we couldn't actually land where the site was. It was still a hover load, so basically we fly in, we get as close as we can to the injured party and the helpers on the ground lift the people up and put them into the helicopter."

New Zealand was fortunate to have an air rescue service to step in in such situations, he said.