Helicopter rescue pilot’s dramatic manoeuvre helps save injured French Alps skier

Aircraft hovers inches from snow surface allowing crews to reach casualty on steep mountainside

Video footage has emerged of a helicopter pilot engaged in a dramatic rescue in the French Alps, hovering with the aircraft’s blades inches from the snow.

Gendarmerie crews were scrambled to a mountain 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) above sea level in the Pass of Anterne to help a group of skiers, one of whom was unable to walk after injuring his knee.

Video captured by Nicolas Derely, one of those saved during the rescue, shows the injured man on a steep slope on the mountainside.

Unable to land, the pilot tilts the helicopter into the slope, hovering just inches from the ground and potential catastrophe.

The helicopter is held in position long enough for rescuers to disembark and attend to the casualty, before they are all winched off the mountain to safety.

Lieutenant Jean-François Martin, the gendarmerie pilot who carried out the rescue, told television channel France 2 that the manoeuvre, called a “support skate”, had been used to save time.

“We had mountain weather that was extremely changeable and could have prohibited us from intervening within a few minutes,” he said.

“The choice was made by the team to do a support skate so as to be as fast as possible.”

The pilot said Alps rescue crews regularly practice the manoeuvre for use in circumstances where landing a helicopter would waste valuable time in reaching a casualty.

The Gendarme en Montagne are a specialised unit of the French police tasked with ensuring the safety of people in mountain ranges.

Officers are responsible for searching for people who are lost or injured at high altitude.