Pakistan army pilots receive French award for rescuing mountaineer

ISLAMABAD: The French military on Wednesday awarded four Pakistan Army Aviation pilots for saving the life of a French mountaineer stranded at the world’s ninth tallest peak, Nanga Parbat, in 2018.

Elisabeth Revol, a French national, and her Polish climbing partner, Tomasz Mackiewicz, went missing while scaling Nanga Parbat in 2018, and the Pakistan Army Aviation carried out a rescue operation on the request of the French embassy in Islamabad to bring them back.

The Pakistan military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said in a statement that Rear Admiral Didier Malterre, Commander of French Joint Forces in the Indian Ocean, conferred his country’s National Defense Bronze Medal on the pilots who participated in the rescue operation.

The ceremony was held in Rawalpindi. Lt. Gen. Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Chief of General Staff (CGS) of the Pakistan Army, along with senior military officers from the aviation corps, attended the ceremony, said the statement. During the operation, the Pakistani team rescued Revol but stopped searching for Mackiewicz after several attempts.