New initiative to facilitate safer evacuation of injured Baltoro porters

The Baltistan Association of Adventure Tour Operators (BAATO) and Petronet Aviation have agreed on a plan to evacuate injured porters from the Baltoro Corridor using the empty return legs of helicopter cargo-sling flights.

The agreement was reached during a meeting in Skardu between Petronet Aviation’s Sohail Zarar Ali Khan, BAATO President Ayaz Shigri, Secretary Sakhawat Hussain and member tour operators.

Under the arrangement, helicopters flying cargo to the Baltoro region will be used to bring injured porters back on their otherwise empty return journeys. The two sides also agreed to coordinate mountain search and rescue, medical evacuation and cargo operations through a common operational system.
“Too many injured porters have had no way off the glacier,” Sohail Zarar Ali Khan said.

“The helicopter is already going up with cargo. It comes back empty. That empty leg is how we bring them home,” he said, adding that the Petronet Aviation-Rescue 1122 Gilgit-Baltistan MoU covering helicopter search and rescue and medical evacuation is currently awaiting approval from the Gilgit-Baltistan cabinet. The companies and tour operators said approval and signing of the MoU would complete the chain between rescue operations on the glacier and the emergency response service.

BAATO Secretary Sakhawat Hussain said the association supported the initiative to ensure that injured porters working in the mountains could be brought back safely.

“BAATO stands with the porters who carry this mountain,” Hussain said, adding that the association’s position was that an empty return flight should be used to evacuate an injured porter whenever possible.

Petronet Aviation has already trained Rescue 1122 Gilgit-Baltistan rescuers in helicopter search-and-rescue operations in Skardu. Rescue 1122 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also received the same training and has requested another batch.

The meeting was attended by BAATO President Ayaz Shigri, Secretary Sakhawat Hussain, Asghar Ali Porik, M. Iqbal Qadri of Summit Karakoram, Manzoor Ahmed of KTP, Ahmad Nasir and Shamshad Hussain.