Page 1 of 6

The 1996 Everest Tragedy

American University of Beirut

Adriana Rebeiz
Ghady Nakhle
Hanine Charanek
Yasmine Djaoui
Zuheir Malas
 Page 2 of 6

  1/ Why do you think Rob Hall did not enforce or follow the 2 p.m. turnaround time on the
day of the summit push? What biases affected him?
Ransack Hall didn't enforce or follow the 2 p.m. turnaround time upon the arrival of the
summit push because he was too confident and sure of his abilities as a climber(It is stated that
he reached the summit 4 times and effectively helped 39 various customers of different
abilities and strength levels to reach the top of Everest). He believed too much in himself and
thought he knew the mountain trails too well that he could deal with any harsh conditions or
unexpected scenarios. I believe that along these lines Rob Hall was suffering from a cognitive
bias which means he lives in his own “subjective reality” and not the real world. He saw that he
successfully climbed the Himalayas several times, as opposed to many other trained people
who either could not make it to the top or died on their way down from there. With that being
said, there are several types of intellectual biases that impacted the choices and decisions
Robert made such as:

1. The overconfidence bias:

During the climb, both Hall and Fischer made bold statements that demonstrated clear
obvious signs of the overconfidence bias. For instance, Hall claimed that he could
prepare any reasonably fit person for the climb. Of course he had a reason to brag and
feel confident, nobody can deny his impressive track record as a guide and the many
lives he saved under adverse conditions only a year back. However, this has given a huge
unnecessary amount of confidence and trust in himself that he can overcome any
circumstances and harsh conditions in the mountains. Thus, we explain why he made
the decision not to follow the typical 2 p.m. and abide by the rules.

2. The Sunk Cost Bias:

The sunk cost effect refers to a person’s tendency to commit to a course of action in
which they have invested a lot of time, money, and other resources. In our case, time,
money and effort have all been spent for the Everest climb. The trek was worth $70.000.
All the climbers spent years preparing and training for this event and the final push to
the summit lasted more than 18 hours after many weeks of hard training and hiking to
base camp. The final push to the summit was very risky and dangerous and required
perfect planning and timing so the auxiliary oxygen bottles would be sufficient for
climbers on one side and so they would not get caught in the dark upon their return to
camp on the other side. Hall knew that the individuals would find it very challenging to
turn around after making it so far up the mountain and expending a huge efforts and a
 Page 3 of 6

lot of past Everest guides reported climbers mocking them and laughing at them when
told they would not be able to summit.

Despite mentioning several times that climbers must be turned around if they could not
reach the summit by 1 p.m. or 2p.m, Hall did not turn any climber around. At the end,
none of the 23 climbers reached the summit by 1 p.m. and only six climbers did by 2
p.m. We read about Doug Hansen in the case, a climber on Hall’s team who expressed
his feelings during his final descent: “I’ve put too much for myself into this mountain to
quit now without giving it everything I’ve got.” Hansen has already climbed the
mountain with Hall in 1995 and was turned around by him just 330 vertical feet from
the summit.

We later learn that Hansen did not reach the summit until after 4 p.m. and perished on
his way back to the base camp. Hansen’s judgement was driven by the sunk-cost effect
and he lost his life as a consequence. Just like the other climbers who experienced
severe sickness and blindness but still carried on climbing.

This shows that just like novices, experts can become victims of the sunk cost effect.
Because we saw that less experienced climbers such as Hansen who committed himself
to a very dangerous mission as he approached the summit. But we also saw how Hall’s
experience and expertise in the field did not prevent a similar lapse in judgement. He
ignored all the rules that were specifically designed to avoid the sunk cost effect and put
both himself and his clients in grave danger.

3. The Recency Bias:

The recency effect is a cognitive bias that gives decision makers the tendency to only
fixate or rely on the most recent, ready, available evidence and information instead of
looking for all the possible sources of information to weigh them equally and make a
decision based on that. It leads people to wrongly believe that the most recent
presented piece of information is enough and will be effective.

This effect was very obvious after Hall’s incorrect assumption about the weather being
calm and agreeable because he led expeditions on Everest for several previous years
and seasons where the weather was always agreeable, however, this was not the norm.
In fact, storms were the norm for many seasons prior to Hall’s expeditions. Despite that,
many climbers considered the storm unusual and surprising which they should not have
because past events and history shows this is typical of Everest. However, Rob Hall’s
recent experiences may have influenced his judgements because he had never been
caught in a storm up the mountain and always experienced a nice weather on summit
 Page 4 of 6

day. For that reason, the expedition team did not prepare accordingly for the storm that
happened on May 10th due to poor judgement of information.

2/ In your opinion, what might have caused Scott Fischer to pursue the summit even though
he was believed to be in poor health? What biases affected him?
 It is needless to say that Scott Fischer exemplified the overconfidence bias clearly. The leader
of Mountain Madness gained worldwide fame in 1994 “for climbing the Everest without
supplemental oxygen and removing 5,000 pounds of trash from the mountain as part of the
Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition." This gave Fisher a huge confidence boost and led him
to be boastful. “I believe 100 per cent I am coming back… My wife believes 100 per cent I’m
coming back” is a statement that shows how confident Fischer was and how much he believed
his trip was going to be successful.
 
Fischer also fell into the immediate gratification bias. Fischer did not spend enough time
training his team and picking appropriate for this mission. This can be confirmed by his Russian
main guide who believed that many of Fisher’s “clients were not fit for such a demanding
environment.”  Suffering from his decisions regarding giving the clients freedom to go up and
down the mountain for acclimatization, Fischer had to do a lot of unplanned trips to help
clients facing difficulties. In addition, he chose an “inexperienced” doctor that was not ready
for the trip and a Sherpa that was busy rescuing another Sherpa in the preparatory month prior
to the climb – April.
All this indicates that Fischer poorly decided on who to take to this mission – unqualified
clients and unprepared staff- and did not prepare the team enough.
He preferred increasing the revenue on this trip (by accepting unqualified clients) and lowering
costs (by getting a voluntary team doctor rather than an experienced, committed employee
and a free Sherpa that is not busy with another rescue mission).

 3/ What role did the escalation of commitment play in the decisions of the two leaders?
How could it have been avoided?
The escalation of commitment shown by the two leaders where unwise and irrational as they
were scared to alter their reputation and the misconception they made the world believe that
anyone no matter how limited his capabilities are can reach the summit and return safely. The
investments these two has made played another major role in their unwise commitment as
they have put too much into this trip that turning back would inflict too much damage to their
companies especially that Fischer said earlier to a reporter “I believe 100 percent I am coming
back . . . . My wife believes 100 percent I’m coming back”. This endless loop of increasing
commitment produced a deadly dose of overconfidence had them think that they can deal
with any kind of complication they could stumble upon, this could have worked for the two of
 Page 5 of 6

them and probably for the fittest among the group, but considering that they had picked some
of the team just because they had cash and not considering their skills and physical ability, it
turned fatal. Moreover, the determination that they had drove them to not abide by the
normal protocol which states that they should start their descend before 2 pm to the point
where they were late up until 4 pm. They ought to had had focused on the humanitarian and
logical side of the conflict and not simply for the money and reputation of their companies in
which they should have strictly followed the protocol thus escalation of commitment could
have been avoided.
4/ What decision biases are likely to have played a role in the decisions of the expedition
leaders and their team members?
In fact, there are a combination of decision biases that have influenced the decisions of the
expedition leaders and team. The most significant one is the over confidence bias where the
two leaders held unrealistic trust in their selves, skills and success. To illustrate, having reached
the Everest summit for four times and without oxygen, Fischer believed and published in one
magazine that he is 100% sure that he will do it successfully where he can lead under worst
conditions. This claim was also proposed by his competitor Hall who was confident that he will
go back safe from the summit. Another decision bias was the confirmation bias. Although these
two climbers hadn’t led a commercial team before and with a large group, they were based on
their past successes and experiences to guarantee the success of their 10 May 1995 trip. In
addition, one of the critical errors that directly lead to this deadly end is the immediate
gratification bias. Indeed, this is illustrated when the two leaders didn’t give the correct
importance of having a specific turnaround time (2 pm) where most of the climbing team
continued to climb to the summit when they should have been on their way down, which, as a
result, lead to their death. This might also be explained by having a structure that doesn’t fit
their strategy which was presented by climbing in smaller proximity that resulted in waisted
time, reaching the summit in the wrong time and decreased their survival opportunities.
Another problem was the framing bias where Fischer and Hall focused and highlighted the
importance of “ winning the competition” rather than paying attention to the other details
regarding the weather, time and quality of their teams. As they were faced by a deadly
weather when they were descending and by mis training the team that most of which were
professionals and hadn’t the needed time to climbing trainings.
5/ Is it possible to practice rational decision-making under extremely stressful conditions
such as the ones explained in this case?
Taking decisions depends on the decision makers situation. There are two opposing situations.
First, there are situations where the decision maker is capable of controlling his or her
emotions in order to a take a decision. Second, the decisionmaker is in a very critical and
 Page 6 of 6

stressful condition such as medical urgencies where he or she is not able to think rationally or
in a proper way. In the second case, it is clear that the person taking the decision may face
many problems in practicing rational decision-making and this is supported in the Everest case.
In the Everest case, both Scott Fisher and Rob Hall were put in the situation of taking a decision
under hard conditions and this led to an irrational decision. When being placed in this
situation, the person goes through what we call as intuitive decision making, taking decisions
based on experience, and this is exactly what they did. Therefore, we can say that rational
decision making is associated with a person having no external stressful conditions and
intuitive decision making is usually a result of external pressure on the decisionmaker.