British man missing on Everest as family launch search fundraiser | UK news

A family are hoping to raise £150,000 in an effort to find a Briton who went missing while climbing Mount Everest.

Dan Paterson, 40, from Wakefield, and his Nepali guide Pastenji Sherpa, 23, have not been heard from since they reached the summit just before 5am on May 21.

The pair, who were part of a group, are believed to have fallen down the side of the mountain after a ledge of hardened ice and snow collapsed just below the summit.

Four other climbers also fell, but were attached to the group’s fixed line and managed to return to safety.

It is feared that both men may have died in the fall.

Dan’s partner Becks Woodhead has now set up an online crowdfunding page to raise £150,000 so a helicopter and specialist search teams can try to find him.

The GoFundMe page has so far raised around £108,000.

She writes: “My name is Becks Woodhead and I am the partner of Dan ‘Pat’ Paterson. Dan’s family and I urgently need your help.

“Tragically, during his descent, Daniel disappeared and there has been no contact or sighting of him since.

“Time is of the essence in a situation like this and we are mobilizing all the resources we can to locate Dan.

“Running a search and rescue operation on Everest is an incredibly complex and expensive endeavor. We are not experts in this and there is no guarantee of success.

Videos and photos on social media taken after the ice collapse show large numbers of people on the Hillary Step, a near-vertical rock face near the summit of Everest.

Vinayak Malla, an International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA) guide who scaled Everest on the day it happened, wrote on Instagram: “After the summit I crossed the Hillary Step, traffic was moving slowly, then suddenly a cornice crashed a few meters ahead of the US There was also a ledge below us.

“As the cornice collapsed, four climbers nearly died but were caught by the rope and self-rescued.

“Unfortunately, two climbers are still missing. We tried to cross but it was impossible because of the traffic on the fixed line.