The climber fell from Observatory Ridge, left. Photo: Subflux CC-BY-SA-2.0

A climber was airlifted from a ridge after falling on Britain’s highest mountain.

The woman was on Observatory Ridge on Ben Nevis’s north face when she fell yesterday.

Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team was alerted about 2.15pm and team members made their way to the incident and stood by while a Sea King helicopter from RAF Lossiemouth winched her aboard and flew the injured woman to Glen Nevis.

The helicopter was in the area on an exercise at the time.

The Observatory Ridge route is graded a Very Difficult summer rockclimb which, despite its name, is at the lower end of climbing difficulty.

• Two mountain rescue teams combined in a difficult rescue of a walker in the Lake District.

The man fell about 5m into Dungeon Ghyll in Great Langdale, suffering back, chest, hip and knee injuries.

Members of the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team were joined by colleagues from the Kendal team yesterday after they were alerted about 1.40pm.

Rescuers treated the man in the gill and then extricated him from the ravine in an operation lasting four hours. He was lifted to a position where an RAF Sea King helicopter winched him and flew him to hospital for further treatment.

The Langdale and Ambleside had earlier in the day dealt with two separate incidents of walkers with suspected heart attacks.