Two people have died following an avalanche in the Highlands, police said tonight.
Northern Constabulary said a man and a woman who were airlifted from the Chalamain Gap area of the Cairngorms to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary earlier today have since died.
Another man, who was flown to the same hospital, remained in a critical condition.
A rescue operation was launched shortly after 12.30pm involving police, Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, search and rescue dogs, RAF Lossiemouth's mountain rescue team and a helicopter.
One man was initially rescued and airlifted to Aberdeen, and shortly afterwards a further two people were found and taken to hospital.
Police said the rescue operation has been stood down.
A spokesman said: "Police can confirm that two people involved in the earlier avalanche at Cairngorm have sadly died.
"A man and a woman who were airlifted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary earlier have been pronounced dead and a third person, male, is in a critical condition."
No further information will be given about those involved until their families have been informed, he said.
Today's avalanche is the latest in a series of incidents in the Scottish mountains in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, a hillwalker died during an expedition with a mountaineering club in the Cairngorms.
Graham Connell, 31, from Castleford, West Yorkshire, was found dead in the Jacob's Ladder area on Monday, following a large-scale search for him and five other people who were reported overdue on Sunday afternoon.
The other members in the party, who were unhurt, were picked up by an RAF rescue helicopter after being located by Braemar Mountain Rescue Team on a hill near Carn Tarsuinn.
The search, co-ordinated by Northern Constabulary and Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, involved more than 100 people.
The walkers were part of a larger group of 35 people visiting the Highlands.
In a separate incident earlier this month, three men survived falling 150 metres in an avalanche in the Coire an t-Sneachda area of the Cairngorms.
The men, who were wearing helmets, were airlifted to hospital with leg injuries.
The avalanche, on February 2, was the second in the region that day.
In January, four people were killed in an avalanche in Glencoe.
Hospital doctor Rachel Majumdar, 29; PhD student Tom Chesters, 28; Christopher Bell, 24, also a PhD student; and 25-year-old junior doctor Una Finnegan died after they were caught up in an avalanche on January 19.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article