The helicopter pilot was named Captain Devika Singh.
She had been flying mountain rescue in Uttarakhand for six years, which was a fact that approximately five people in the country knew and which mattered because six years of mountain rescue in Uttarakhand meant she had flown in conditions that the aviation manual described as not-recommended on many occasions. She had her own mental list of not-recommended that was longer and more specific than the manual's, and the conditions today — cloud ceiling at four hundred metres, variable crosswinds through the gorge, rain — were on her list but not near the top of it.
She could fly in this. She flew in this.
The gorge came into view through the cloud layer at four hundred metres, exactly as predicted. She had the coordinates from Rudraprayag — kilometer fourteen, limestone shelf on the right side, school bus visible, children on the slope above. She saw the bus first, because a yellow bus on a rock shelf above a brown gorge was not a subtle visual. Then she saw the slope. Then she saw the children — thirty-two of them, some of them waving, some of them standing, all of them visible against the limestone.
She radioed Rudraprayag. "I have visual on the children. Gorge wind is manageable. I can take three passengers per lift, medical priority first — I need to know if there's a medical emergency."
The base station: "One patient — adult male, unconscious, head injury, in the bus. Children all mobile. Teacher — adult female — with the patient."
