Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the highest mountain in the world from the window of the aircraft? Just picture yourself nestled in your seat sipping a cup of coffee and admiring the snow covered mountain peak! The only drawback is that the planes do not, for that matter, travel over Mount Everest or the Himalayan range. But why is that?
Imagine a scheduled commercial airline that wants to fly over the Himalayas. The flight starts smoothly: the plane reaches its normal cruising altitude of 35,000 feet and flies at a speed of about 550 miles per hour. Finally, the pilots see a range of high mountains straight ahead, with one peak standing out among the rest.
It’s the world-famous Everest-the highest mountain above sea level on the entire planet! The pilots know they weren’t meant to be so reckless! And that’s when it all goes terribly wrong!
