Northern Territory Emergency Service (NTES), along with rangers from Parks Australia and Police from Yulara and Mutitjulu rescued three 22-year-old men after they became stranded in a crevasse at Uluru yesterday.

It is believed the men wandered off the official path and realised they were stranded about 12:00pm.

Sergeant Matt Akers said that they were able to communicate with the men via loudspeaker and mobile phone.

“Police ascertained that they were uninjured and had sufficient water,” he said.

“NTES vertical rescue teams from Alice Springs arrived on the scene about 4:30pm.

“A helicopter was used to transport the rescue equipment to the top of Uluru.”

NTES volunteer Alan Leahy said that the rescue effort had its share of challenges.

“Due to the fading light and lack of anchors, the rescue effort was slow and methodical,” he said.

“We abseiled about 320m to the stranded men. There were very strong winds that kept on tangling the rope.

“We reached the men at around 11:30pm and then continued to take them down one at a time to the base of the rock, completing the rescue at 3:30am this morning.

“In total we abseiled about 520m and used about 1km of rope in the rescue effort.

“The team of six NTES volunteers did an amazing job. No rescue team in the world could have done better.”