Originally Posted by
KAPAC
Allegedly it was F/O’s first flight into KTM , was it a training flight . Young ( female , relevant in some cultures ) F/O and ex military captain . She may have have not been doing a lot in those last few minutes ?
Pilots- male or female at one point or other have to fly to a new airport. Training flights have additional risk, that is why there is an IP in the cockpit.
Things turned bad pretty fast. One single thing cannot be blamed and is never a root cause of a crash. Loss of situational awareness, communication breakdown, engine failure, MELs& MX, weather, traffic, psychological and physical state of pilots can all play a role. Everything needs to be scrtunized.
I have flown in and out of VNKT as a local pilot many times and now fly all over the world. The controllers are not any different than in other Asian countries. Lack of resources and information inhibits their abilities.
Pilots don't have the luxury of ILS or precise radar vectors. It is a VOR DME approach with lot of pressure. The terrain can be intimidating if you see it visually from a cockpit.
Various questions needs to be answered- automation, what was being used and what was MEL? Was it hand flown all the way? Was the traffic a problem? Hearing the ATC recording the pilot seems quite calm but the ATC is being frantic about the Dash8 flying towards wrong runway.
02 and 20 is easy to confuse but you have an (MFD) ND that clearly shows the runway that is active for the approach.
ATC and pilots are both responsible for a safe landing.
I hope they find a root cause and can improve things and avoid similar accidents. Bangladesh and Nepal are two very corrupt countries and the report can change and have a common conclusion. Has happened before!