Two Britons among three dead in French Alps avalanche near Val d’Isère

# Two Britons among three dead in French Alps avalanche near Val d’Isère

*Event date: 2026-02-13*

Two British tourists and one French skier have died in an avalanche near Val d'Isère in the French Alps, according to French prosecutors and resort officials.

The BBC said the British pair were skiing off-piste in the Manchet valley with an instructor when the avalanche struck. A spokeswoman for the resort said they were part of a group of five people. The French national was skiing alone at the time, and another British person suffered minor injuries. The avalanche hit at 11:30 local time, according to Albertville prosecutor Benoit Bachelet.

French authorities have launched a manslaughter investigation, which will be carried out by CRS Alpes mountain rescue police. The ski instructor survived and tested negative for alcohol and drugs. That detail is likely to matter in any legal or safety review, because investigators will want to know whether the group was properly supervised and whether conditions had been assessed correctly before the off-piste descent.

Officials had already warned that avalanche risk remained high across the Alps. France's national weather service issued a red alert for avalanche risk across Savoie on Thursday before lifting it on Friday, but the wider mountain risk remained severe because of very unstable snow cover. The avalanche followed Storm Nils, which dropped between 60cm and 100cm of snow the day before.

The conditions described in the report suggest a mountain environment primed for disaster: recent heavy snow, unstable layers, and continued high risk despite the formal alert being lifted. A local slope manager told AFP that snow conditions had been complicated all season and compared the pack to a mille-feuille with fragile hidden layers. The quote illustrates how experienced local operators viewed the hazard.

The BBC also reported that Val d'Isère had already seen fatal avalanches this winter, including another death in nearby Tignes last month and a British man's death at La Plagne in January. That background does not change the specific facts of this incident, but it shows that this was not an isolated event and that the region had been dealing with repeated snow instability.

The Foreign Office said it was aware of the deaths of the two British men and was in contact with local authorities, ready to offer consular assistance. For the families involved, that means repatriation and local support will now sit alongside the French criminal inquiry.

The immediate questions are not only about the weather, but about decision-making. Why was the group skiing off-piste in those conditions? What avalanche assessment was given? And could the slide have been avoided if the unstable snowpack had been treated as too dangerous to enter? The report does not answer those questions, but it makes clear that the risk level remained high and that the avalanche came after days of warning signs.