“Gentlemen, please be quiet!” he looked at the screen. “Please, what happened next? Why don’t we see the scientists and the rescued passengers with you?”
Captain Shah continued:
“The woman was in serious condition, and we decided to return to the helicopter. By then a strong wind had risen, and we had constructed a stretcher. The weather was rapidly worsening. The civilians took the girl, and we moved forward with Dr Capri. Then… I don’t know how we lost sight of him; we tried to go back, but visibility was zero. Snow and wind everywhere. We couldn’t find them. Half an hour later, we found our helicopter and co-pilot. We decided to wait for the wind to calm down, but it only got stronger.”
The Indian general, who was sitting behind a desk at the European Space Agency building, came into the conversation:
“After a couple of hours, we found them near the helicopter. After that, a rescue team went out with the Nepalese military to look for civilians, but all we found was an inverted tail section. The team split into two groups. One took the captain’s team back to our base, and the other stayed in the quad to search for survivors. We have no more news so far,” the general finished.
“Is there still bad weather in the area?” someone from the hall clarified.
“Yes, the weather is constantly changing, but in total the conditions are bad. We hope that the civilians found some shelter nearby. There’s a big storm out there.”
Several people ran into the ESA room. One of them immediately ran up to Jean-Jacques Dordain. Two others to Charles Bolden. The audience froze.
“Just a second,” said the Indian general.
The man was explaining something emotionally to the head of the European Space Agency, then he started pointing at the other two and his laptop screen. Jean-Jacques Dordain silently asked, “are you sure?”, and the man nodded briefly.
Monsieur Dordain looked around the room, remembered the video conference call, and, indicating with his hand to the panting man that he should wait a second, began:
“Gentlemen, you might have more questions, but we need to interrupt the videoconference urgently. New information has come up.”
The head of ESA looked at the scientist standing next to him, then at the head of NASA. Between them there was a short discussion without words. Charles Bolden nodded to share the bad news with colleagues. Jean-Jacques Dordain gathered air into his lungs: