Family Flies Home With Body : Prince Charles Describes Horror of Fatal Avalanche

Prince Charles flew home Friday with the body of a friend who was swept off a Swiss mountain by an avalanche that nearly engulfed the heir to the British crown as it roared down the slope in a “terrifying matter of seconds.”

The 39-year-old prince, his wife, Princess Diana, and sister-in-law, Sarah, the Duchess of York, all dressed in black, walked under leaden skies from the red and white jet of the Queen’s Flight at Northolt air base, near London.

With Maj. Hugh Lindsay’s pregnant widow, Sarah, Charles watched as six soldiers from his dead friend’s Royal Lancers regiment bore the flag-draped coffin from the jet.

Sarah Lindsay, 34, a Buckingham Palace press officer, had helped answer inquiries about the accident before discovering her husband was killed in the avalanche.

Married Last July

She and Lindsay, also 34, were married last July, and she is expecting a baby in May.

In a handwritten departure statement read to reporters at Zurich airport after the royal party left, Charles said he and five companions were skiing “at our risk and we all accepted . . . that mountains have to be treated with the greatest respect.”

When the avalanche started “with a tremendous roaring” he and three others skied out of its path, Charles said.

Then, “to my horror, Maj. Hugh Lindsay and Mrs. Palmer-Tomkinson just failed to ski clear and were swept away in a whirling maelstrom as the whole mountainside seemed to hurtle past us to the valley below. It was all over in a terrifying matter of seconds.”

He described helping dig Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson out of the snow with a shovel, then with his hands. Both her legs were broken.

The royal party cut the skiing holiday short. It began Tuesday and ended tragically Thursday when the avalanche hurtled down the mountain at Charles; Palmer-Tomkinson; her husband, Charles; Lindsay; Swiss guide Bruno Sprecher, and a Swiss policeman.

They were skiing off the main track between the treacherous Gotschnawang and Drostobel trails when the snowslide began about 300 feet above them. Officials had warned of avalanche danger.

“Herr Sprecher acted with incredible speed and total professionalism,” the prince said. “He skied down as fast as possible, having told the Swiss policeman to radio for assistance.”

Sprecher located Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson by the electronic beeper on her body.

“Mr. Palmer-Tomkinson and I skied down and just arrived as Herr Sprecher had reached Mrs. Palmer-Tomkinson’s head,” Charles’ statement said. “He gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and revived her. He gave me the shovel to dig her out and I tried using my hands as well.

“At this point I sat with Mrs. Palmer-Tomkinson while he (Sprecher) quickly went to try and locate Maj. Lindsay. He found him about 15 yards above Mrs. Palmer-Tomkinson, but tragically he had been killed outright during the fall.”