Hannes Arch, one of the main driving forces behind the Red Bull X-Alps, has died in a helicopter crash. He was 49.
“We are devastated,” organisers of the Red Bull X-Alps posted on their website this morning. “We have lost the mastermind of Red Bull X-Alps, but even more our best friend and brother. Words can not describe, how we all feel.
“In these hours our thoughts are with his girlfriend Miriam, sister Lisa, his parents and nephews and all who are close to him.”
According to press reports from Austria, Hannes crashed on Thursday evening in the Schobergruppe a subrange of the Hohen Tauern mountains in the Central Eastern Alps.
Hannes ran a helicopter flight transport company that shuttled supplies to mountain huts, and reports say that the crash happened as he returned from the Elberfelderstraße hut heading for Salzburg at 9pm.
The cause of the crash is unclear, but local police confirmed that the flight was a registered night flight and the weather was clear. A spokesman said: “Under such circumstances such a flight is not problem.”
The crash site was in the mountains amid steep terrain and was overflown by a rescue helicopter at 1am local time, but landing was not possible.
A mountain rescue team reached the site some hours later after a three-hour walk-in. For Hannes that was too late, but his passenger, the 62-year-old guardian of the Elberfelderstraße hut was found alive but with serious injuries. He was taken to hospital in Klagenfurt.
Born in Leoben, central Austria, in 1967, Hannes discovered flying at an early age. He took up hang gliding aged 15 alongside his father, then turned to paragliding and was a pioneer acro pilot.
A mountain athlete who liked climbing and Base jumping too, he became a core member of the Red Bull team as a pilot. In the last decade he had flown in the Red Bull Air Race, and had a fanbase around the world.
“Hannes has been a Red Bull Athlete for over 25 years,” a Red Bull Air Race statement read today.
“The world mainly knew Hannes as an amazingly successful Red Bull Air Race pilot. This was only one of the ways in which his spirit found expression. In younger days he was ranked as one of the world’s leading mountaineers and climbers and was one of the first aerobatic paragliders.
“We will miss his warmth, sense of fun and boundless energy.”
Cross Country joins many others in sending our sincere condolences to Hannes’s family and many friends.
