At least 68 people died in a plane crash in Nepal on Sunday. New footage of the crash raises questions.
There are many unanswered questions after the crash of Flight YT691 in Nepal, which killed at least 68 people on Sunday morning. The recordings show an abrupt rollover of the aircraft during the landing approach. The route is operated daily by Yeti airline and the weather was immaculate. There are also no signs of a technical failure in the machine so far – however, it abruptly fell from the sky when approaching Pokhara.
According to initial findings, all 72 occupants on board, including an Argentinean, an Australian, an Irishman, five Indians, four Russians and two Koreans, were killed when the ATR-72 machine crashed. Bodies were still being recovered on Monday, but the Nepalese government has given up hope of finding survivors.
EU black list
For the people of Nepal, the tragedy is likely to be more than just a plane crash. For years, the country has worked to improve its bad reputation when it comes to flight safety and to be removed from the European Union’s blacklist. However, Sunday’s crash cannot be attributed to the usual causes, such as mountainous terrain or bad weather, and is likely to raise even more questions about Nepal’s flight safety oversight.
perfect weather conditions
As the flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara is considered a routine route, Yeti Airlines offers daily flights, each lasting about 20 minutes. A total of about 20 aircraft from various airlines fly this route every day. The weather at the time of approach for landing was fine, the sky was cloudless. Also, Yeti, which is the biggest provider of domestic flights with its subsidiary Tara Air, is one of the best airlines in Nepal in terms of safety.
And the ATR-72’s flight data show no unusual occurrences that would explain the sudden left bank. According to Flightradar24.com, the machine was equipped with an old transponder that only allowed for approximate data collection. However, the portal extrapolated the missing values based on data from previous flights and came to the conclusion that there was nothing to indicate unusual behavior of the flight until the accident.
Changing tilt raises questions
Radio traffic between Pokhara Airport and the crew of the Yeti Airlines machine does not indicate any specific problems during the approach for landing. As “AeroTelegraph” writes, the pilots initially asked for permission to land on runway 30, but later switched to runway 12. “We didn’t know why. Permission was granted and the plane started to descend,” said an air traffic controller. to the Kathmandu Post. The pilot was a man with 35 years of experience. His co-pilot was therefore on the verge of being promoted to captain. Her husband was also a co-pilot for Yeti Airlines and died in an accident in 2006 along with eight other people on board.
Authority suspected of technical defect
The cause of the crash is now under investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN). On Sunday, the authority announced in a message that a technical defect was suspected. Among other things, the European Union has blacklisted all Nepalese airlines because it believes that the Caan monitoring authority is too negligent.
According to the German Press Agency, a flight data recorder and a voice recorder have already been recovered. They were found at the crash site on Monday, a Nepal Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said. A day of national mourning was held in Nepal on Monday and Yeti Airlines announced on Sunday that it would not operate flights on Monday.
Red Nav-Account Time 16.01.2023, 12:29 | Act: 01/16/2023, 12:29