The enduring mystery of Mallory and Irvine, the tweed-clad heroes of Everest last seen vanishing into a cloud as mist swept over the Himalayan summit, may finally have been solved 100 years on from the tragedy that so nearly ended in triumph.

A National Geographic documentary crew has found the possible partial remains of Andrew Irvine, a British climber who vanished on Mount Everest 100 years ago.

A discovery on Mount Everest could help prove that a pair of climbers reached the world’s tallest summit almost 30 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay got there in 1953.