Rescue attempts are scheduled to restart on Thursday for mountaineers Muhammad Ali Sadpara, John Snorri, and John Pablo Mohr after a minor improvement in the weather at Skardu.
In operation, a special forward-looking infrared (FLIR) mission will be used by a C-130 aircraft along with four high-altitude porters (HAPs) from Sadpara village.
Over the past four days, the bad weather in the area has hampered on-ground and aerial search attempts for the three mountaineers last seen near Bottleneck on K2 on February 5.
“FLIR will use for the search mission.
High altitude climbers are also engaged for ground search because of any location spotted through the FLIR mission. All efforts are geared up for a search of national hero Ali Sadpara and his brave team, including John Snorri of Iceland and JP Mohr,” said Inter-Services Public Relations said.
Infrared radiation is sensed by the sensors in FLIR cameras and transformed into an image.
Secretary Karrar Haideri of the Alpine Club of Pakistan said the four HAPs, Sadiq Sadpara, Ali Muhammad Sadpara, Ali Raza Sadpara, and Dilawar Sadpara part of the quest mission and will be in Skardu.
He said, “Sadiq and Ali Muhammad, both of whom have experience of 8,000m peaks, are already acclimatized and go above the base camp if the need arises,”
Late on Friday, Ali, Snorri, and Mohr lost contact with the base camp and were declared missing on Saturday after their support team began getting messages from them while attempting to scale the second-highest mountain in the world. A rescue operation was conducted, but due to adverse conditions, continuously disrupted it.
A host of experts were part of the rescue mission, including local high-altitude climbers Fazal Ali and Jalal from Shimshal, Imtiaz Hussain, and Akbar Ali from Skardu, Alex Găvan from Romania, Nazir Sabir, Chhang Dawa Sherpa, and other members of the SST winter expedition team.
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