MOUNTAINEERS WHO VANISHED CLIMBING EVEREST MAY NOT HAVE REACHED SUMMIT
- George Mallory, 37, and Sandy Irvine, 22 were last seen alive on June 8 1924
- Graham Hoyland claims that a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure is to blame
British mountaineers who vanished during a 1924 expedition to the top of Mount Everest are unlikely to have reached the top before they died, an author has claimed.
George Mallory, 37, and Sandy Irvine, 22, were last seen alive on the northeast ridge of the mountain at around 12pm on June 8 1924.
Now, 100 years on from their death, author Graham Hoyland has claimed in his forthcoming book 'First on Everest', that the two explorers never made it to the summit because a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure meant they were walking into an 'invisible death trap'.
The 66-year old is a descendant of one of Mallory and Irvine fellow expeditioners, the meteorologist on the mission, Howard Somervell, who kept a detailed log in a handwritten diary.
Ahead of his book launch Mr Hoyland will discuss his findings at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) stating after deep analysis of Mr Somervell's personal notes that he no longer believes the team reached the summit.
He told the Times: 'Previously I believed in death and glory but I had to change my mind. When the facts change, if you're honest with yourself, you have to change your mind.'
Mr Somervell notes, Mr Hoyland claims, prove that there was a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure between June 8 and June 9 - when the duo are believed to have perished.
Lower air pressure means fewer molecules of oxygen in the atmosphere, making hypoxia, which causes confusion and death, significantly more likely.
The notes, which were made public in 1926, detailed how the group had calculated what the pressure would be at the summit.
Mr Hoyland said: 'In 1924 the summit barometric pressure fell from 341 millibars on June 6 [when Mallory and Irvine set of from Camp IV] to 331 millibars on June 9, a drop of approximately 10 millibars, equivalent to an increase of roughly 600ft (180m) in effective altitude.'
He explain that if the group had not had to battle with a barrage of other factor working against them they might have survived the plummeting air pressure.
'In thinking about my book I put together all the things I had personally researched and realised just how much Mallory had against him.
'Irvine's inexperience, the new route, heavy oxygen, insufficient clothing and finally the killer storm. Any one of these he could have overcome, but not the whole concatenation.'
Mallory's body was discovered 2,000 feet from the summit in 1999, but the body of Irvine has never been found. The pair were last seen approximately 800feet from the summit.
In 1996 eight professionals and paying clients died on route to the top of Everest - the highest number to ever die in a single day.
Mr Hoyland claims in his book that this tragedy was also the result of a sudden and dramatic drop in atmospheric pressure to 331 millibars.
'A decrease in summit barometric pressure of just 4 millibars is enough to trigger hypoxia. Clearly both storms were associated with summit barometric pressures and pressure drops that were sufficient to drive the climbers into a hypoxic state.
'The pressure drop was larger and occurred more quickly for the 1924 storm, suggesting that it might have been even worse than the 1996 storm.'
With that evidence absent, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay continue to be credited with being the first climbers to reach the top of the Himalayan mountain - which straddles Nepal and China - in their 1953 expedition.
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