King Charles Reflects on Surviving a 1988 Avalanche in Switzerland

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King Charles recently reflected on surviving a 1988 avalanche that killed one of his closest friends, speaking about the incident while hosting members of the Assynt Mountain Rescue Team at Castle of Mey. He hosted the group at his residence on the north coast of Scotland on August 1 as part of a celebration marking the team’s 50th anniversary. In conversation with the group, Charles, who has rarely publicly discussed the incident over the last few decades, described his survival in 1988 as “a close thing.”

“He spoke of the near miss he had in that avalanche in the context of the dangers mountains contain,” team leader Ben Dyson told The Times. “Obviously after all these years it is still much in his memory, but it had given him an insight into the valuable work we do and the dangers we face.”

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Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and Sarah Ferguson at Klosters on March 9, 1988.

The avalanche occurred on March 10, 1988, when the then-Prince of Wales and a group of friends were skiing off-piste above the Swiss resort of Klosters. According to an Associated Press report at the time, a snowslide began approximately 300 feet above the group on Mount Gotschnagrat, a mountaint in the Plessur Alps, overlooking Klosters. The avalanche swept down the slope, killing Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth and one of Charles’s close friends. Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, another friend of the King’s, suffered serious leg injuries. Charles and other members of the group reached safety before returning with their guide and a Swiss police officer to dig the victims out of the snow. Both Lindsay and Palmer-Tomkinson were airlifted to a hospital in Davos, where Lindsay was pronounced dead.

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Major Hugh Lindsay (center) in 1984.

Lindsay’s wife, Sarah, who worked in the Buckingham Palace press office, was six months pregnant at the time of his death. Princess Diana, who had not been feeling well that day, and Sarah Ferguson, who was pregnant with Princess Beatrice at the time, were resting at a chalet in Davos when the avalanche hit and were unharmed. The Princess of Wales later recounted in Diana: Her True Story — In Her Own Words that she and Ferguson packed up Lindsay’s belongings and insisted his body be brought home to England immediately.

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Charles and Diana returning to RAF Northolt in London with Lindsay’s coffin.

The avalanche incident was dramatized in the fourth season of The Crown, in an episode titled “Avalanche” that used the disaster as a parallel for the deteriorating state of Charles and Diana’s marriage.

Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.