Story ID: 138AppareoAWDLaing
Appareo Pilot of the Year Award
By: Amy Laboda
Caption: A high altitude long-line rescue earns Laing Pilot of the Year
Word Count: 436
Heli-Expo is the venue for the presentation of nine Salute to Excellence Awards, honoring the best and brightest in the helicopter industry. This year’s Appareo Pilot of the Year Award goes to New Zealand-born Jason Laing, a 6,400-hour helicopter pilot with more than 5,000 hours of mountain flying experience, along with NVG operations, SAR and firefighting skills. Operating from his home base in New Zealand, Laing has flown business, touring and missions in New Zealand, Australia, Antarctica, Kashmir (India) and Nepal. He is a highly respected high-altitude pilot who is often called upon for difficult mountain rescues.
  
Most recently, after a devastating avalanche at 19,000 feet on Mt. Everest in April 2014 that trapped some 30 climbers, Laing saved lives. He used an Airbus H125 (formerly the AS350B3e) outfitted with a 100-foot long line–doors and extra seating removed–to fly to the icefall at 20,000 feet. He lowered the line, and climbers on the ground strapped their injured colleagues to a stretcher. Laing lifted them in the air and flew them to safety. He single-handedly evacuated four injured Sherpas and 12 other victims. 
  
A year later, in April 2015, a huge earthquake strong enough to move all of Mt. Everest two inches struck. “I’d just got back to my hotel and was getting ready to come into work,” Laing recalled. “I was on the sixth floor when the quake hit. The building didn’t fall down but it was extensively damaged. I was very lucky to get out alive.”
  
He headed straight to Kathmandu Airport and went up in one of the first helicopters dispatched to survey the damage. The day after the quake, Laing was tasked to fly reconnaissance to villages where all communications were lost. He discovered massive loss of life, and returned to base to begin a major rescue effort. 
  
“We went up to the Langtang area. There were massive avalanches everywhere. It was total devastation. There were whole villages just gone,” he said. Next, he was sent to Mt. Everest’s Camps 1 and 2, where a collapsed icefall had trapped some 140 climbers.
  
In addition to the Appareo Pilot of the Year Award, Laing has been honored with the Kumar Khadga Bickram Adventurous Award from the Nepal Mountaineering Association and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship. He has most recently been working with the Himalayan Trust set up by Sir Edmund Hillary in 1960 in an effort to raise $50,000 to stage mountain rescue equipment at Everest above the ice falls, as well as to help rebuild Sherpa villages in Nepal.