French police have launched a manslaughter investigation following the deaths of a British mother and her son during an avalanche in the Alps.
It emerged yesterday that two skiers may have caused the torrent of snow which claimed the lives of the 54-year-old woman and her 22-year-old son.
The two skiers have been traced and will be helping police with their inquiries after the British pair were killed during a day out off-piste in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains on Thursday afternoon.
Three other members of their family, including the woman’s husband, survived, along with their professional ski instructor, and two others.
Karline Bouisset, a prosecutor in Bonneville, near Grenoble, has opened a criminal inquiry into manslaughter while judicial police collect evidence.
She revealed yesterday that “two cross-country skiers were upslope” and “could have caused the avalanche”. She said that the British party knew the ski area well, and that the risk at the time was just “moderate” – level two out of five on the European Avalanche Danger Scale.
Guy Le Neve, deputy commander of the mountain search team in Chamonix, said: “This is an area reserved for very good skiers.”
“This is a group who had known the instructor very well for many years and who regularly came to ski in the area.”
None of those involved has yet been named but it was confirmed that the instructor was highly qualified and worked for the ESI International Ski School.
He was quickly found and removed from the impacted snow after the alarm was raised, because he was the only member of the party wearing an avalanche victim detector device.
