Nepal Blocks US Alta X Gen 2 Drone Test at Mount Everest Base Camp

On May 1, a team of officials from the United States led by President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor, took a helicopter to the base camp of Mount Everest to test the capacity of their home-made Alta X Gen 2 drone.

“Kathmandu, Nepal – On May 1, a team of officials from the United States – led by President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor – took a helicopter to the base camp of Mount Everest”

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera reports that Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs refused to issue a drone flight permit to the US officials, citing “drone flying procedures” and “security sensitivity” in an internal memo obtained by the outlet.

Al Jazeera

The Alta X Gen 2 drone never flew near Everest, and the US officials returned to the capital, Kathmandu, after the plan hit a snag at the 5,364-metre base camp.

Al Jazeera also says the US team hired Seven Summit Treks, and local drone pilots were called to the base camp for the test, but the permit denial prevented the drone from being used.

The episode unfolded as the annual Everest climbing season began, with a 12-member team of Nepalese climbers reaching the summit on Wednesday to clear the route for hundreds of mountaineers expected to ascend in the coming weeks.

Al Jazeera says the US test was set against a backdrop where Chinese-made DJI FlyCart 30 drones have already been performing Everest logistics since 2024, ferrying supplies from the base camp to Camp I on the mountain’s southern ridge at an altitude of 6,130 metres.

The outlet reports that after a successful test, DJI gave two drones to AirLift Technology, a Nepalese drone company, to carry supplies to Camp I, providing the Sherpas with “considerable respite.”

ladepeche.fr

For this year’s operations, Al Jazeera says DJI provided its latest version, FlyCart 100, to AirLift even before its formal launch in the market, and drone operators described it as able to carry up to 45kg to Camp I in less than three minutes.

Al Jazeera quotes Milan Pandey, the director of AirLift Technology, saying: “It can carry loads and return to the base camp, bringing down garbage, in about eight minutes.”

The same Al Jazeera report adds that on normal days, a DJI FlyCart 100 carries more than 900kg of load to Camp I every day, while also bringing down poop bags and other rubbish from the mountain slopes.

Al Jazeera frames the permit denial as trapping Nepal in a tussle between the United States and China, turning Mount Everest into “a new theatre of the tech war” between the two powers.

“Nepal: Drones to Clean Everest and Relieve the Sherpas Its slopes are soiled that they are sometimes described as the world's highest landfill”

RFI

The outlet quotes Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warning: “Given how critical a role drones are playing in the security landscape, this only ratchets up the stakes further.”

RFI, meanwhile, describes a separate Everest drone effort in Nepal where Nepali guides are equipped with two heavy-lift drones, and between April and June they recovered nearly 300 kilograms of waste.

RFI adds that after a test on Ama Dablam at 6,812 m, the system enabled the evacuation of 641 kilograms of waste by air, and it quotes Cheaper Raj Bikram Maharjan of Airlift Technology explaining: “It is much cleaner and cheaper than using helicopters.”

RFI also reports that next month Airlift Technology will test the drones on Manaslu, which rises to 8,163 m, the eighth-highest peak on the planet, while Al Jazeera notes Nepal’s position is shaped by pressure from both Beijing and Washington.