Sir Edmund Hillary said it would not have happened on his ascent of Everest. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Sir Edmund Hillary said it would not have happened on his ascent of Everest. Picture / Brett Phibbs

The first man to the summit of Mt Everest cannot understand how New Zealand climber Mark Inglis and others on the mountain left British mountaineer David Sharp to die.

"All I can say is that in our expedition there was never any likelihood whatsoever if one member of the party was incapacitated that we would just leave him to die," Sir Edmund Hillary said yesterday.

The renowned adventurer was reacting to the decision by double-amputee Inglis, who was one of many who passed the dying Briton near the summit without trying to rescue him.

Sharp died on the mountain.

Mr Inglis' family has today voiced disappointment at the criticisms of the mountaineer.

Father in-law Kevin Hathaway said it was no use being a dead man's hero on Everest.

Inglis has also said his party could do nothing, as Sharp had neither oxygen nor proper gloves when they came across him sheltering under a rock.

"Trouble is, at 8500m it's extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keep anyone else alive," he said.

Inglis has accepted that his group would get flak for not doing more to help the dying man.

"Absolutely. That's a very fair point," the 47-year-old said on TV One's Close Up.

"On that morning, over 40 people went past this young Briton.

"I ... radioed and [expedition manager] Russ said, 'Mate, you can't do anything. He's been there x number of hours without oxygen. He's effectively dead'. So we carried on.

"Of those 40 people who went past, no one helped him except for people from our expedition."

But Sir Edmund was in no doubt.

"On my expedition there was no way that you would have left a man under a rock to die.

"It simply would not have happened. It would have been a disaster from our point of view."

People had completely lost sight of what was important, he said.

"There have been a number of occasions when people have been neglected and left to die and I don't regard this as a correct philosophy.