A few weeks ago, a 24-year-old had an accident in the Alps. Emergency services are looking for the missing climber at high pressure, including with a Bundeswehr Eurofighter – in vain. All you can do is recover his body.
After almost a month, an Austrian police helicopter found the body of a missing climber on the Hochkalter in Upper Bavaria. According to a police spokesman, an alpine task force from the mountain rescue service discovered the lifeless body of the 24-year-old on a snow field at an altitude of 2,250 meters on Thursday.
According to the Berchtesgaden Police Inspectorate, the location was in a chute below the spot where emergency services discovered the 24-year-old’s backpack during the unsuccessful search in September. The body was brought down into the valley in the afternoon. The cause of death is still being determined, but third-party negligence or the involvement of other people is excluded.
The 24-year-old from Hanover set out alone on September 17 for a high-alpine tour of the Hochkalter, despite adverse weather conditions. In a fall below the summit, he was apparently seriously injured, but was able to make an emergency call himself. Then the contact broke off.
Thomas Meeß from the Ramsau Mountain Rescue Service attributes the fact that the climber could be found so quickly to the changed weather conditions. It has thawed up to higher altitudes, “the snow has simply released it now,” he told Bavarian Radio.
Mountain rescuers previously searched for the missing person with high-tech and special equipment, including a helicopter with a special locating probe. A Bundeswehr Eurofighter was also deployed, supporting the rescuers with positioning technology and high-resolution aerial photographs. Teams of mountain rescuers and police mountain guides were deliberately set down on the steep, snow-covered rock face. With avalanche probes and electronic tracking devices, they searched the steep gully and the rock faces above and below the site. They were secured to ropes and had special ice axes and avalanche emergency equipment with them.
The intensive search measures on the mountain and from the air had to be stopped again and again due to heavy snowfall and storms. On the evening of September 22, the mountain rescue service finally stopped the search. As the police announced at that time, the mountain rescue service and the police had done everything humanly possible to find the missing person alive.
