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A private helicopter carrying four foreign heli-skiers that had gone missing in the mountains of Gund in north Kashmir's Kangan quarter is found crashed. However, all the four heli-skiers are safe. Three of them have returned Srinagar on Saturday morning while the pilot was still on the mountaintop who is also now rescued.

"He (pilot) is safe. He has no problem," Sylvian Sudain, group leader of the heli-skiers.

French skier Sylvain Sudain, and two other skiers, Daine Schlegel and Julian Escoubas and pilot Lucyan had left Srinagar Friday morning for heli-skieng in he snowy mountains of Gund. They soon lost the ground contact raising the fears that the helicopter has crashed.

"We were at 4200 meters height. Brightness and reflections from the snow made it more difficult to fly and the pilot did not see where to land," said Sudain, who is a world famous heli-skier and is known as impossible skier. "He touched the ground a bit too fast, causing damage to the helicopter," he said adding "we had been lucky to survive," he said. "Everybody is fine," he added.

He said that it was very cold there and "we had few clothes with us. It took us 10 hours to reach back. We reached here this morning," he said. Sudain said the helicopter was damaged.
 
This is second time that Sudain has escaped after their helicopter crashed in the same area. Earlier on March 13, 1999, Sudain and 10 foreigners had a narrow escape after a helicopter had crashed on the Gund mountain range.