Mission aborted

Avalanche ends lightly: victim disappears

A sliding snow avalanche - typical of this year's winter - broke loose on Sunday at around 12.40 pm in the area of the Sidanjoch in Hochfügen in the Tyrolean Zillertal. According to witnesses, one person was caught in the avalanche and swept away. However, the victim was immediately rescued by two alpinists and made off.

The victim triggered his avalanche airbag, the witness made an emergency call and began to climb up towards the avalanche cone with his companions. Even before the rescue services arrived, the witnesses were able to see how the avalanche victim was freed from the avalanche by two other alpinists who were apparently not part of the buried victim. "The victim then immediately climbed back up towards Sidanjoch", according to the police.

Large search operation too dangerous
The witnesses then searched the avalanche with an avalanche transceiver, but did not detect a signal. They reported this to the Tyrol control center. For safety reasons, there was then no major search operation. "An ascent by the mountain rescue team and the alpine police would have been very risky due to the prevailing avalanche situation," explain the officials. As everything from the burial to the rescue was observed by the witnesses and the avalanche cone was also searched, the alpine police decided to end the search operation in consultation with the mountain rescue team at around 1.15 pm.

The Kaltenbach mountain rescue team, two avalanche search dogs with dog handlers, two emergency helicopters, the police helicopter and the Alpine police were deployed.(Bild: zoom.tirol)

Police ask for reports by telephone
The police have not yet been able to locate the briefly buried ski tourer. "It should be remembered that in the event of such accidents or near-accidents, as well as negative avalanches, it would be very desirable for those involved to report them by telephone via emergency call in order to prevent larger and unnecessary operations," said the executive.