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February 17, 2023 | 1:22 p.m
According to a preliminary investigative report, human error related to a mix-up of levers was likely behind the crash of a Yeti Airlines flight in Nepal last month, killing 72 people on board.
Yeti Airlines Flight 691 from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu to the tourist city of Pokhara crashed shortly before landing on January 15.
There were 72 people on board the ATR 72 twin-engine aircraft, including two small children, four crew members and ten foreigners. Rescuers recovered 71 bodies, with one passenger still missing but presumed dead.
Less than two minutes before the fatal crash, Captain Anju Khatiwada requested the plane’s flaps deploy and said, “Flaps 30,” to which his co-pilot, Captain Kamal KC, replied, “Flaps 30 and descending,” according to the 13- side preliminary report released on Wednesday.
However, the flight data recorder “did not record any flap surface movement at this time”.
Human error is said to have caused Yeti Airlines Flight 691 to crash in Nepal on Jan. 15, according to a preliminary investigative report. Portal The crash happened in the tourist town of Pokhara just before the plane was scheduled to land. Portal
Instead, both engines’ propeller RPM reduced and torque began to drop to 0%, suggesting that one of the pilots may have inadvertently moved the throttle instead of the lever controlling the flaps – resulting in both engines being “sprung”. , meaning There was no thrust in the engines to propel the plane forward.
Tourism ministry joint secretary Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane told the Kathmandu Post that the investigative panel is still working to find out why pilots delayed deploying flaps and why they failed to follow routine checklists.
According to the report, Captain Anju Khatiwada, 44, flew the plane. She was accompanied by a flight instructor who acted as a monitor. family handout
Earlier this month, the panel said analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder showed that the propellers of both engines had gone into a feathered position.
“When both propellers were feathered, the investigation team determined that both engines of 9N-ANC were idling during the event flight to prevent overspeed,” said the report, published on the Ministry of Tourism and Culture’s website was and Civil Aviation of Nepal.
The report suggests that one of the pilots accidentally pulled a lever instead of deploying the plane’s flaps during descent, causing the plane’s engines to lose power. Prabin Ranabhat/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
According to the preliminary report, when the air traffic controller in Pokhara cleared the flight for landing, Khatiwada twice mentioned that the engines had no power.
The doomed flight was operated by Khatiwada, who was just getting acquainted at the airport for Pokhara operations, and KC, the flight instructor on the training flight, which was her third that morning after a previous sightseeing flight.
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Of the 72 victims who died in the crash, 71 were recovered but one passenger still remains missing.
Nepalese army, police and AFP rescuers recover the body of a victim who died in a Yeti Airlines plane crash in Pokhara.
A general view of rescue teams working near the wreckage at the crash site of a Yeti Airlines ATR72 plane in Pokhara, central Nepal.
The crash claimed the lives of two young children and 10 foreigners.
Khatiwada, 44, was the pilot who flew the plane and KC, 58, was the pilot who monitored, according to the report.
Khatiwada joined Yeti Airlines from Nepal in 2010, following in the footsteps of her husband Dipak Pokhrel, who was killed four years earlier when the small passenger plane he was piloting for the airline crashed minutes before landing.
KC had completed his pilot training in the USA and had flown airplanes since 1989. He had more than 21,900 flight hours.
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