Copters Pluck American, Australian Off Mt. Everest

An American and an Australian returned to Katmandu by helicopter Wednesday as other climbers who were caught by a sudden blizzard on Mt. Everest struggled to make their way down.

Nepalese army helicopters rescued Charlotte Fox of Aspen, Colo., and Michael Groom of Brisbane, Australia.

Eight climbers apparently died after a fierce storm struck the 29,028-foot mountain Friday, freezing experienced alpinists and newcomers alike with waist-high snow and 70-mph winds.

The dead included a three-man team from India, and an Indian mountaineering expert claimed Wednesday that two of them might have survived had a Japanese team stopped its climb to save them.

The Japanese base camp said its climbers did not see any Indians on the way up, a reporter for the Japanese newspaper Nishinippon said.

Capt. M.S. Kohli, the mountaineering advisor to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, said two Japanese and their three Nepalese Sherpa guides passed the two Indians, who were near death from exposure, and continued the 1,000 feet to the summit.

Two Americans, two New Zealand climbers and a Japanese climber--in a different team than the one alleged to have passed the Indian group--also died in the storm.