Bui Van Ngoi became the first Vietnamese to successfully scale the world’s highest mountain peak Everest on May 22, holding aloft the national flag at the 8,850m summit.

Ngoi reached the mountain summit at 6am local time (7:30am Vietnamese time). He was followed by his teammates Phan Thanh Nhien and Nguyen Mau Linh who came in two hours later.

The fourth Vietnamese mountaineer, Le Ba Cong, failed to complete the last leg of the climb due to his health conditions.

The climbers trained for the challenge on Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia , Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and the 6,160m-high Island Peak in Nepal. They managed to reach the summit of Island Peak within 20 days.

The team is scheduled to arrive at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on June 6, the end of an adventurous journey that began on March 31. (VNA)