At an altitude of 2843m, the small airstrip here has earned a reputation as one of the most extreme and dangerous airports in the world. The single runway is narrow, short and sloped. Miss the runway by a few metres and the plane would hit a mountain.

“After you cross the river there is no turning back, you have to land,” said Pramod Poudel, a Tara Air pilot who has flown hundreds of these flights to Lukla.

Carved out of the side of a mountain, the airport was built by Sir Edmund Hillary in 1965 – 12 years after he became the first man to conquer the world’s highest peak – to help the local Sherpas spur development in the impoverished area.

Now what once was a dirt strip is one of Nepal’s busiest airports, the Tenzing-Hillary Airport – named as well for Hillary’s climbing partner Tenzing Norgay. The thousands of mountaineers and trekkers who visit the Everest region have to fly to the airport if they want to avoid a daylong bus trip from Katmandu and five days of trekking to reach here.

The airport has handled up to 79 flights on one day – far beyond the acceptable capacity for such a facility, said Rinji, the airport’s air traffic controller, who, like most Sherpas in the Everest region, uses only one name.