Jason Laing was named the Appareo Pilot of the Year at last week's Helicopter Association International annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky.
The award, one of the most prestigious of nine Salute to Excellence Awards, recognises a pilot who has demonstrated an exceptional act or several acts of professionalism.
The 700-strong audience gave him a standing ovation before a video and slideshow of his feats.
Mr Laing, who has logged 6400 hours including more than 5000 hours' mountain flying, modestly said he was just doing his job.
‘‘I've just been there when some big events have happened,'' Mr Laing said.
The specialist high-altitude pilot - who is returning to Nepal for another climbing season at the end of this month - was at the centre of the action when the Himalayan country was struck by a devastating earthquake in April last year.
One of the first pilots dispatched to survey the damage, he and other colleagues rescued about 140 climbers trapped by a collapsed icefall on Mt Everest's Camps 1 and 2.
A year earlier, after a calamitous avalanche on Everest, he long-lined out four survivors and 13 dead climbers in conditions so bad other pilots refused to fly.
In between those calamities, Mr Laing airlifted survivors from a blizzard on the Himalayas' Annapurna mountain.
The Pilot of the Year award is the Queenstown's man second international honour.
Mr Laing, who has worked in the Himalayas for six seasons, travelled to Holland last September to pick up the Federation Aeronautique Internationale diploma for outstanding airmanship.
The two awards come on top of bravery awards from both the Nepalese government and the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
Mr Laing's Queenstown friend Peta Carey told Mountain Scene last year that the bravery involved in hovering a chopper while executing high-altitude long-line rescues is nothing short of incredible.
‘‘It's not just the altitude, it's the air temperature and air pressure.
‘‘Jason's very canny in terms of stripping that machine down to the absolute last razoo to make it as light as possible.''
Mr Laing himself admits that high-altitude flying - he can fly up to 7000m altitude - involves working his machine to the upper limits of its capacity.
Since last year's Nepalese earthquake, Mr Laing has also been working with the Himalayan Trust, set up by Everest's Kiwi conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary in 1960, to raise funds for a rescue building at Lukla, at the gateway to Mt Everest.
-Philip Chandler
