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KATHMANDU: Doggedness and a devil-may-care attitude enabled Wing Commander Ramesh Chandra Tripathi to live up to the motto of the Indian Air
Force Touch the sky with glory literally on Tuesday, as along with two Britons, he became the first men to make the highest parachute landing.
The 45-year-old para jump instructor, and British divers Leo Dickinson, 62, and Ralph Mitchell, 24, leapt off a helicopter from 20,000 ft in northern Nepal flanked by the Himalayan ranges to land successfully at Gorak Shep, a sandy plateau at 16,800ft.
It was the fulfilment of a dream, said Tripathi, who in 2005 had led the IAF team that ascended Mt Everest. Now if I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man.
Like Dickinson, an inveterate adventurer who was also the first man to sail above Mt Everest in a balloon in 1991, Tripathi is an intrepid mountaineer who was awarded the Presidents Vayu Sena medal for gallantry in 2006. He is also leading the IAF Seven Summits expedition that flagged off with the Everest ascent in 2005. By 2010, the team plans to conquer the six remaining highest peaks in six more continents.
It was a remarkable feat for Tripathi especially as he had suffered a brain haemorrhage six months ago and his doctors opposed his skydive plan from a height where the dearth of oxygen could cause death. Unlike his peers, who spent about five days in Gorak Shep acclimatising, Tripathi did not have that luxury since he did not have leave. He rushed to Kathmandu on Saturday, left for Lukla, the gateway to the Everest region, the next day and attempted the dive Monday.
But the weather was bad Monday and strong winds forced the helicopter to turn back, says Abhishek Pande, coordinator at Himalaya Expeditions that had organised the logistics of the dive. In 2005, the same agency handled the IAF Everest expedition during which Tripathi had expressed his desire to skydive in the Everest region.
It was three years before the trend started in Nepal. Last year when skydiving in the Everest region began, HimEx remembered Tripathi and matched him with the two Britons who wanted to have a stab at it this year. Wing Commander Tripathi flew to Gorak Shep at 6.30am in the morning, Pande said. He dived at around 7.50am after the two others. While he flew from Lukla, he kept on inhaling half a litre of oxygen from the oxygen cylinder per minute to support himself. When he alighted, he took off his mask for half a minute and then put it on again, speaking only after he returned to Lukla.
When the hype over the feat began Wednesday, Tripathi was already back in New Delhi, going to his office in the morning. For the Dhaula Kuwa resident who hails from Dehra Dun in Uttaranchal, the skydive triumph is especially sweet as it comes after two aborted attempts one last year and one this summer to summit Mt Lhotse and Mt Cho Pyu, the fifth and sixth highest peaks in the world respectively.
Force Touch the sky with glory literally on Tuesday, as along with two Britons, he became the first men to make the highest parachute landing.
The 45-year-old para jump instructor, and British divers Leo Dickinson, 62, and Ralph Mitchell, 24, leapt off a helicopter from 20,000 ft in northern Nepal flanked by the Himalayan ranges to land successfully at Gorak Shep, a sandy plateau at 16,800ft.
It was the fulfilment of a dream, said Tripathi, who in 2005 had led the IAF team that ascended Mt Everest. Now if I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man.
Like Dickinson, an inveterate adventurer who was also the first man to sail above Mt Everest in a balloon in 1991, Tripathi is an intrepid mountaineer who was awarded the Presidents Vayu Sena medal for gallantry in 2006. He is also leading the IAF Seven Summits expedition that flagged off with the Everest ascent in 2005. By 2010, the team plans to conquer the six remaining highest peaks in six more continents.
It was a remarkable feat for Tripathi especially as he had suffered a brain haemorrhage six months ago and his doctors opposed his skydive plan from a height where the dearth of oxygen could cause death. Unlike his peers, who spent about five days in Gorak Shep acclimatising, Tripathi did not have that luxury since he did not have leave. He rushed to Kathmandu on Saturday, left for Lukla, the gateway to the Everest region, the next day and attempted the dive Monday.
But the weather was bad Monday and strong winds forced the helicopter to turn back, says Abhishek Pande, coordinator at Himalaya Expeditions that had organised the logistics of the dive. In 2005, the same agency handled the IAF Everest expedition during which Tripathi had expressed his desire to skydive in the Everest region.
It was three years before the trend started in Nepal. Last year when skydiving in the Everest region began, HimEx remembered Tripathi and matched him with the two Britons who wanted to have a stab at it this year. Wing Commander Tripathi flew to Gorak Shep at 6.30am in the morning, Pande said. He dived at around 7.50am after the two others. While he flew from Lukla, he kept on inhaling half a litre of oxygen from the oxygen cylinder per minute to support himself. When he alighted, he took off his mask for half a minute and then put it on again, speaking only after he returned to Lukla.
When the hype over the feat began Wednesday, Tripathi was already back in New Delhi, going to his office in the morning. For the Dhaula Kuwa resident who hails from Dehra Dun in Uttaranchal, the skydive triumph is especially sweet as it comes after two aborted attempts one last year and one this summer to summit Mt Lhotse and Mt Cho Pyu, the fifth and sixth highest peaks in the world respectively.
