lodeInside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket
https://kathmandupost.com/money/2026/03/27/inside-nepal-s-fake-rescue-racket
I did the Everest base camp trek in late 2015, at that time it was quite common (saw it myself and heard about it) that people would do the trek up but to get down they would fake a leg/back injury or blame altitude sickness and the chopper from Kathmandu would come pick you up, as long as you had the right insurance.
I wonder how much a chopper ride would cost at "reasonable rates" (e.g, not the air ambulance but just a chopper).
From personal experience it's about twice the cost of an ambulance ride from my house to the hospital. Air ambulances here are about 10 times as much.
Having something scheduled is cheaper than on-demand, too. You may even end up using the same equipment, but at a lower priority (it costs $200 or so to have an ambulance sit at your event, for example).