Mountaineer Targets ‘Fly-By’ of Mt. Everest

Chris Bonington, who climbed to the top of Mt. Everest four years ago, now hopes to become the first person to fly over the world’s highest mountain in a hot-air balloon.

“We have a good chance of landing on target north of Everest on the Tibetan plateau, but something could go wrong and we might be forced down above the snow line in the narrow Himayalan valleys,” he said. “That’s where I come in.”

Bonington, who has had no previous ballooning experience, will be joined by Swedish balloonist Per Lindstrand for the flight over the 29,028-foot “roof of the world” in September.

While Bonington, 54, will be relying on Lindstrand’s skills to steer them over the towering Himalayan peaks, if things go wrong above the frozen slopes, Bonington’s mountaineering skills will be needed to guide the adventurers to safety.

Earlier Attempt

An attempt by Lindstrand, 40, and millionaire pop music tycoon Richard Branson to cross the Atlantic in a balloon in 1987 ended when the craft ditched in the Irish Sea.

After a week’s acclimatization in the Nepalese Himalayas to about 19,000 feet, the team will take off at dawn some 20 miles from Everest and make a quick ascent to the relatively safe winds of the jet stream above 24,000 feet.

The duo must make it across the summit of Everest at a height of at least 35,000 feet.

“That is the most dangerous part of the flight,” Bonington said. “If we cross too near the summit, we could be caught in the downflow that goes over Everest. It would suck us into the face of the mountain. That would be terminal.”

During the expected 2 1/2-hour flight they will have to endure temperatures of minus 50 degrees, which Bonington said he had experienced on his climbing expeditions.

“The vast difference is that on a mountain you are moving all the time and generating heat,” he said. “But at that height the sun should generate considerable radiance.”

$70,000 Craft

Their 90-foot balloon, which cost $70,000, will carry eight propane gas cylinders with enough fuel for a 6 1/2-hour flight, just in case.

The balloonists will be in radio contact with a pick-up team on the Chinese side and with an American meteorologist in Boston. “We’ll get better information from him on conditions in the jet stream than from a local source,” Bonington said.

The next tense moment will be the landing.

The 80 m.p.h. to 90 m.p.h. winds of the jet stream are quite predictable, but those at lower altitudes are less so.

“You can have distinct changes of wind direction at different levels,” Bonington said. “I think we have at least an 80% chance of touching down in Tibet at 25 miles per hour, but we’ve got to be ready for a snow landing.”

Test Case

After the recent military crackdown in China, the landing in Chinese-governed Tibet will be something of a test case in international relations.

“The thing is still in doubt,” he said. “We’ve had positive signals from the Chinese Tourist Assn. but we still haven’t got signed clearance to land on the Tibetan plateau.”

What is the attraction of ballooning over mountains that Bonington has been struggling to conquer on foot for most of his adult life?

“It’s just an exciting, slightly daunting thing to do,” he said. “Floating up there with nothing but your ballooning skills to guide you over the Earth is one of the things most attuned to nature of all human activities.”

Bonington said he hopes the emotional experience will match the exhilaration he felt when he placed his foot on the summit of Everest, a lifelong ambition fulfilled at age 50.

“I cried on the top of Everest,” he said. “I was thinking of my friends, of those who died on climbing expeditions. I was confused . . . I even forgot to take off my goggles and oxygen mask for the photographs.”