Wealthy financiers were rescued from possible death by two dozen mountain rescue volunteers.
The three businessmen flying by private helicopter to meet Huddersfield Giants owner Ken Davy had to abort their journey in remote moorland.
The pilot of the Robinson R66 chopper took the decision to make an emergency landing after “pea souper” like conditions made it too dangerous to fly.
The pilot had flown the helicopter down from Scotland on Thursday afternoon to pick up the two other men in England.
He was just a few minutes from Huddersfield when poor visibility forced him to put the aircraft down in the northern Peak District, high above the Woodhead Pass.
Mr Davy, who had invited the men for a business appointment prior to enjoying the home fixture versus Wigan, said the men would not have survived the night if they’d not been rescued.
A dozen volunteers from both Woodhead and Glossop Mountain Rescue Teams located the stranded trio using mobile phone tracking devices.
Woodhead MRT, team leader, Keith Wakeley, said: “We received the initial call out at 3.30pm, and given the exact location of the downed helicopter was unknown, combined with the poor weather conditions, it was soon decided to call for assistance from Glossop MRT.
“It was an unusual call out for us, thankfully we don’t get called out to downed aircraft very often.
“The poor visibility was a real issue but thankfully we were able to use our own technology to locate the helicopter quickly.
“On arrival at the rendezvous point rescuers were able to make contact with the pilot of the helicopter via mobile phone and gained further information regarding their potential location.
“Rescuers then utilised a smartphone app, specifically for mountain rescue teams, to pinpoint their exact location.
“Once the exact location was known, rescuers were at the helicopter’s location in 40 minutes.
“As you can imagine the men weren’t dressed for a cold wet day on the hills and it was important we got to them as quickly as possibly.
“Thankfully they’d done the right thing and stayed at their location until help arrived.”
The Scottish pilot and his two passengers, an Englishman and an Irishman, were found safe and well.
Mr Davy said the men, long standing friends and colleagues of his, had hired another helicopter on Friday to fly them back to the one abandoned on the moors.
“They’re incredibly grateful to the mountain rescue teams because they said they wouldn’t have survived the night up on the moors,” he said.
“They were very wet and very cold and they hadn’t eaten.
“They missed their meeting with us but they managed to get to the match where they saw a great Giants win over Wigan.”
Mr Davy acknowledged it wasn’t common for Giants fans to arrive by helicopter but said there were fans that came from all over the country, including a teacher from Harlow that watched every game, home and away.
He added: “I would expect that they will be making a donation to the mountain rescue teams as they are very altruistic people.”
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