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Three men are feared dead after being hit by a massive avalanche while on a backcountry heli-skiing trip in the US state of Alaska, say officials.

“It’s been the butt of jokes in every group ski chat I’ve participated in,” Highland Park resident Ethan Ayer said of the idea for heli-skiing, the term for plopping skiers on mountaintops via helicopter.

Northern Escape Heli-Skiing, based in Terrace, British Columbia, earlier confirmed that three people had died.

Soloy representatives said the aircraft was under contract to Tordrillo Mountain Lodge to carry the group from a private home in Wasilla, north of Anchorage, to the Chugach Mountains for a heli-skiing trip, according to the report.

Heli-skiing services have launched in the snowy Himalayan mountains of Indian Kashmir, between India and Pakistan, during lulls in violence between Muslim separatists and the New Delhi government.