The accident happened at 2:20 AM. That’s not daylight. The drone didn’t fly over until more than two hours later. ( Drone flew from about 4:30-5:30 AM). Look at the pictures Lucy Westlake posted in the article I linked again. (She turned back right after the first avalanche).
Does the mountaineering community agree as to any “standard of care” for such situations? I recall reading about sailors perceiving a duty to assist someone in need, no matter what the economic cost. Of course, I do not know how that would be enforced. Would a captain who failed to stop be castigated by other sailors? Not re-hired?
Do mountaineers feel it is “every person for themself”? Or do they rely on their small group? Or is there an expectation of anyone rendering aid to anyone who needs it? If I invested heavily in such an effort, and was doing everything right, I can imagine not eagerly forgoing my goal to help someone who endangered themself through insufficient preparation. And, like others have said, if a couple of people are already attending to the person in danger, me just milling about in no way helps things.
I’d imagine that to have any chance of saving this guy would pretty much require a concerted effort of several people, and would cancel the chances of anyone “downslope” of summiting that day. I don’t know how realistic that is to expect.
One of my favorite things to do is hike in state and national parks. But I put a lot of effort into avoiding crowds, even if it means missing the most “famous” sights. Looking at those images (and similar ones from Everest), if I were a mountaineer, I’d be climbing the 3d, 4th, or 5th highest mountain, rather than standing in that conga line just for some bragging rights. One of my kids ejoys rock climbing. I’ve often been impressed that she doesn’t have to climb Half Fome to get her kicks, She can spend an entirely enjoyable day on what appears to me to be an unremarkable roadside embankment.
No. I am not a mountaineer but have read a fair amount about Himalayan climbs. You are essentially on your own. Climbers will usually help, and they often do, but for the reasons I explained earlier (cost, time, summit window, and most of all it is physically near impossible for a single climber to drag another of the mountain) there is no expectation for it and no obligation to help.
Sounds reasonable.
I’ve got a surefire way to avoid dying on a mountaintop. I stay off of mountaintops! 
I’m not a sailor nor an expert on maritime law, but it’s more than “perceiving a duty” - it’s a legal obligation for anyone at sea to help others if needed. I believe proven failure to do so would result in some sort of criminal charges.
You may be familiar with the captain of the Carpathian being castigated for his failure to properly investigate if the Titanic needed assistance? Although in that case there was sufficient plausible deniability for him to avoid being charged.
In every jurisdiction?
I don’t know how jurisdiction works but I assume much of maritime law must be international, to cover what happens in international waters. Or, I suppose, based on the law of the country of the flag under which the ship in question sails. Perhaps our resident maritime lawyer @Princhester might be able to briefly explain the rudiments?
For the rescuing ship, how much risk are they expected to take on? I would expect the obligation to rescue would be contingent on the rescuing ship being able to safely execute the rescue. If it’s calm seas, then it may just be a bit of delay to rescue a disabled ship. But if it’s in choppy seas and the disabled ship is near a rocky shore, it seems like it would be too dangerous to attempt a rescue. If a ship did not attempt a rescue because the conditions were too dangerous, would the court take the dangerous conditions into account?
Well of course - the first rule of emergency response is to not add to the casualties. In other words, don’t attempt a rescue that could result in you needing rescue yourself. Which (conveniently) brings us back to the topic at hand - if you’d put yourself in danger on a mountain by attempting a rescue, your best option, physically and morally, may be to not attempt the rescue. Should you continue on to the summit? That could be moral also, if by turning back you would be putting yourself and other climbers in mortal danger by attempting to get past them.
Just last weekend I was hiking and heard someone fall on the trail just ahead of me. When I got there a few seconds later, a guy was laying on his back holding his wrist. I offered to help him up a couple times but he refused and said he’d be okay. I waited a little and asked again if I could help and he again refused, so onward I went. If he had hit his head or there was blood or accepted my assistance and needed help down the trail, I would have done it without question, even tho it would have f-ed up my day.
Years ago a friend of mine was hiking along the backside of Mt Whitney in CA. He came upon a pair that had run out of food, and it was at least a day’s walk to the nearest road head. Without question he offered them a little of what he had, maybe of his own planned reserves. He took on some of their risk because you don’t leave people stranded like that, even when they are unprepared.
But, I guess if you have trained for months and paid $$$ and traveled far from home the bar is much higher to help someone.
I am no high-altitude mountaineer. But similar to @Bullitt, I have ready a lot about these expeditions and am fortunate to know (not closely - through business dealings) a small handful of the global top-tier of climbers.
I think I am representing their viewpoints fairly when I say that the failure to help is not the lost training time, the sponsor money, the travel commitments when climbers fail to render every assistance. It’s that at that altitude, in those conditions, everyone is already on the ragged edge of life or death.
Your friend gave food to the hikers as I hope all of us would do. But instead of reducing his safety margin by some fractional amount, imagine that his sharing of food, oxygen, physical effort, time, was enough to put his own life (as well as the lives of his team and others) at significant risk as well. At the same time knowing that his contribution would probably not even be enough to be successful. The margin is just too fine in almost every situation.
It’s similar to the maritime analogy. Saving a sailor in calm, open ocean is not the same as attempting a life-threatening rescue of a boat getting smashed on the rocks, knowing that sailor is no longer likely to live anyway.
It’s harsh, but the environment on those mountains is so different than a hike on Mt. Whitney that I don’t think there’s a fair comparison. The pro mountaineers I know are well aware that they alone are responsible for their own lives.
I think you’re thinking of the Californian, which was the nearest ship but had switched off its radio and so never heard Titanic’s distress calls.
The captain of the Carpathia, on the other hand, immediately changed course and made full steam towards the Titanic after hearing her distress calls. The crew pulled 706 survivors out of the water, then clothed, fed, and comforted them. Captain Roston was the Sully of his day; he was ultimately knighted by the UK and awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the US.
Another legal matter in which I am completely ignorant. As I recall, maritime law is one of only a couple of areas in which a US lawyer can specialize.
42 USC Section 2304 “requires a master or individual in charge of a vessel to render assistance to those in danger at sea if able to do so without seriously endangering the vessel or crew.”
But I have no idea of how that is enforced.
Quite right, I had muddled up the names - thank you for the correction.
In The Perfect Storm — been a while since I read it — at least one rescue helicopter went down and subsequently needed rescuing. A Coast Guard tug saved some of the crew, but not all. The original fishermen were never found, either.
In Touching the Void, the guy’s partner tried to help him down, but eventually cut the rope and left him to die…
The book The Breach by Rob Taylor describes a controversial case where one climber left his injuried partner on Kilimanjaro after a fall. The details of the incident are somewhat in question but it divided the community about duty of care in the mountains.
To be a little fair to the Touching the Void partner, the way he tells it the weight of the author hanging in mid-air was pulling him towards the edge of a cliff so the choice was either cut the rope and let him fall or they both fall into the crevasse. Later he called his name and assumed he was dead when there was no response (in reality he was only unconscious). So it was not quite as controversial as many other cases.
That’s the problem with this debate, world views clashing too hard. To me it’s not reasonable. The more this thread goes on the more my previously wishy-washy do-what-you-will attitude erodes into a hardened anti-mountaineering stance 
.
Too me this kinda reads as willfully accepting a certain degree of personal dehumanization in the form of cold equations for what is essentially an environmentally unsound (as practiced at Everest) hobby. Good thing for those folks that I’m not an authoritarian world dictator (yet, anyway).
It’s very unfortunate that the names were so similar. I often mix them up.
Speaking of that Halloween 1991 storm, did anyone catch that Linda Greenlaw is now skippering a boat on Deadliest Catch?
/end of hijack