The bodies of three hillwalkers have been recovered from a mountainside in the Scottish Highlands after they failed to return from a trek, police have said.
Police Scotland said concerns were raised shortly after 9pm on Saturday when the trio did not return from their walk of the Aonach Eagach ridge in Glen Coe. Coastguard helicopter and mountain rescue teams searched the area and three bodies were found.
The ridge is one of the narrowest in mainland Britain and stretches for six miles on the north side of Glen Coe, climbing to a height of 1,100 metres (3,608ft). Police Scotland called out the coastguard due to the inaccessibility of the area and the Inverness search and rescue helicopter was dispatched. A search was carried out in difficult weather conditions, with low visibility caused by mist and fog.
The bodies of two men and a woman were located and the coastguard helicopter from Prestwick arrived in daylight to assist mountain rescuers with recovering the bodies.
The hikers’ identities have not been disclosed by police. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We were made aware of concern for a group of three hillwalkers who had not returned from the Aonach Eagach ridge in Glen Coe shortly after 9.05pm on Saturday 5 August.
“A search was carried out and the bodies of three people were found. HM Coastguard as well as Glencoe and RAF mountain rescue teams assisted with the recovery operation. There do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances. A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.”
A spokesperson for HM Coastguard said: “HM Coastguard assisted Police Scotland following reports of three missing walkers in Glencoe on Saturday 5 August.
“Alerted at around 10.50pm, the coastguard helicopter from Inverness assisted with a thorough search of the Aonach Eagach ridge. The helicopter from Prestwick provided further support to police and mountain rescue teams Sunday morning.”
It is understood to be one of the worst multiple fatalities involving hillwalkers from one incident in Scottish mountains.
Kate Forbes, the SNP MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, described the deaths as “horrendous news”. She said: “My thoughts are with the families. My sincere appreciation to mountain rescue, as always, and the emergency services.”
Seven people have lost their lives on the Aonach Eagach ridge since 2014. Previous fatalities in the area have included a 63-year-old woman in September 2014 and a 44-year-old man in July 2016. Walking website Walkhighlands describes Aonach Eagach as the “narrowest ridge on the British mainland”.
Last month John Meechan, an 80-year-old from Glenrothes in Fife, died after falling 930 metres on Coire a’ Bhasteir in Skye’s Cuillin mountains. Skye mountain rescue team and a coastguard helicopter were involved in the rescue operation. Meechan’s family said he had climbed all over the world and was passionate about the sport.
Avalanches during winter are usually the primary cause of death in the Scottish mountains. The first avalanche deaths in three years were recorded on the country’s mountains in the 2018-19 season, when three climbers died on Ben Nevis.
Raphael Aymon, Cédric Ravimet and Adrien Robez-Masson, from France and Switzerland, died in the snow slide in Number 5 Gully on Ben Nevis in March 2019. The only survivor of the accident was Mathieu Biselx, from Switzerland, who described how the party of four experienced climbers were flung down the gully by a torrent of heavy snow that fell 450 metres on to them.
In January 2013, four people – Una Rachel Finnegan, 25; Tom Chesters, 28; Christopher Bell, 24; and Rachel Majumdar, 29 – were killed in an avalanche in the Highlands. Their party of six – three men and three women – was caught in snowfall on Bidean nam Bian in Glen Coe. Police and mountain rescue teams launched a rescue operation after the alarm was raised by two climbers who were not part of the group, after they discovered one of the casualties lying in the snow. The climbers were close to Church Door Buttress when the snow slope broke away.
