India, May 15 -- Vishnu Irigireddy, a 48-year-old Indian-origin tech executive based in Seattle, lost his life in a climbing accident in Washington state's North Cascades last weekend.

Vishnu, vice president of Engineering at Fluke Corporation and an experienced mountaineer, was scaling the North Early Winters Spire with three friends when they suddenly fell.

Tim Nguyen (63), Oleksander Martynenko (36), Anton Tselykh (38), and Vishnu were climbing in the popular Liberty Bell group area of the Cascades when they spotted an incoming storm and decided to descend. A climbing website reported that during their retreat, the team's anchor point gave way, causing three of them to fall approximately 200 feet.

Only Tselykh survived the fall. He ...