Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems to me like a simple case of somebody dropping the ball.

There's quite a long history of collaboration between the Royal Geographical Society and the British military, if I'm not mistaken. (Weren't the members of the Scott expedition serving officers in the army?) Maybe the army just assumed the RGS would fully inform the Mexican authorities of what was happening, and the RGS just didn't think, in this day of heightened security awareness, to advise their hosts that the bulk of their scientific expedition was made up of military personnel.

I don't think anyone on this forum should be expressing surprise at explorers carrying a week's worth of supplies for what was "supposed" to be a 2 day trip; being prepared for the unexpected is what this web site is all about, after all <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

As far as refusing assistance from the Mexican authorities, I can think of several benign explanations:

1. They're a bunch of macho paratroopers who aren't about to let anyone except their own mates rescue them;

2. They don't feel it's a true emergency situation (hence, no need to mount a S&R operation);

3. They don't want to end up getting billed $500K for something they're perfectly capable of handling themselves;

4. They think they're better equipped to handle it than the local rescue teams; and/or

5. They feel they got themselves into it, and they don't want to endanger someone else's lives because of their foul-up.

Granted, there are other explanations, not so benign. But it sounds as if the Mexican authorities are going to investigate those.

IMO, most likely, the British government is going to issue an official "so sorry, it won't happen again" apology, the Mexican government will issue a "that's okay, we all make mistakes" acceptance statement, and some Brit soldiers are going to get their wrists slapped behind closed doors when they get home. <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />