Nepal Plane Crash
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To be clear : regardind Yeti airlines being "banned" from the EU, as Yo-You etc. mentioned already this has very little to do with the airline itself , but it is rather the Nepalese State regulatory weakness in enforcing standard regulations to airlines and/or ATC. All the 20 airlnes of Nepal are on the list, not only a few.. To the defence of the State , it is one of very poorest countries in the world and their ability to enforce western regulations is also very poor. I was there a decade ago a few times , part of a team to try to improve things on the ATC side, We met a few times the Transport Minister at the time , he was a retired American-Nepali Architect who decided to come back and help and serve his country of birth, When we talked about radar, training staff properly to use it, licences , he replied bridges and road ifrastucture. His line of thought basically was when I have money I spend it first on Nepalese people, improving tourists safety is important but come second. I must say I cannot blame him .We managed to have a few small things accepted like changing the approach glide slope gradient in KTM from the 9 degrees to 5.3 , , but the the earthquake struck and priorities changed. There is still no ILS in KTM and will never be as the new RNP AR procedure designed by Airbus was given for free but is of no interest to the domestic airlines that operate in Nepal,
Back to Yeti, when I was there ,our local contacts had a list of who to fly with and who to avoid, Buddah was on top at that time . , Yeti was not .But I saw that Yeti and Tara ( same owner) have changed in the meantime and improved a lot . Yo-You etc can confirm or not. The current boss appears to know what he is doing , like introducing modern ATR-72s.. but the type is not suited for the Mountains destinations so they reduced airports they served.using Tara older but smaller types for those.
10 yaers ago one of the main problem for the smaller airlines was maintenance and spares. Not sure is this is still a factor today , but if it still is , it could be the elephant in the room here ..
Last remarks on the pilots. Again 10 yaers ago , all of them were local Nepali , a quite a few women too. The old Ziegler motto ( the one from Air Alpes , not Airbus) : " It is far easier to train a local mountain guy to fly than to teach an experienced pilot. to fly in the mountains " is still valid. They were good, some very good. Most of the accidents they have ,( about 1 fatal every year on average ) are weather related. There is ( at least was) no weather forecast system in Nepal , no weather stations at destination airports., just what the local Tower controller , generally alone for 8 hours) would report what he /she saw. . The environement is hostile and unforgiven .
Therefore when I read the reported experience of both the Captain and the F/O , see the weather that day and the absence of hindering terrain around , I have difficulty to believe one of them would let an aircraft stall on base leg , Must be something else. But let's see what the CVR/FDR will tell us .
Back to Yeti, when I was there ,our local contacts had a list of who to fly with and who to avoid, Buddah was on top at that time . , Yeti was not .But I saw that Yeti and Tara ( same owner) have changed in the meantime and improved a lot . Yo-You etc can confirm or not. The current boss appears to know what he is doing , like introducing modern ATR-72s.. but the type is not suited for the Mountains destinations so they reduced airports they served.using Tara older but smaller types for those.
10 yaers ago one of the main problem for the smaller airlines was maintenance and spares. Not sure is this is still a factor today , but if it still is , it could be the elephant in the room here ..
Last remarks on the pilots. Again 10 yaers ago , all of them were local Nepali , a quite a few women too. The old Ziegler motto ( the one from Air Alpes , not Airbus) : " It is far easier to train a local mountain guy to fly than to teach an experienced pilot. to fly in the mountains " is still valid. They were good, some very good. Most of the accidents they have ,( about 1 fatal every year on average ) are weather related. There is ( at least was) no weather forecast system in Nepal , no weather stations at destination airports., just what the local Tower controller , generally alone for 8 hours) would report what he /she saw. . The environement is hostile and unforgiven .
Therefore when I read the reported experience of both the Captain and the F/O , see the weather that day and the absence of hindering terrain around , I have difficulty to believe one of them would let an aircraft stall on base leg , Must be something else. But let's see what the CVR/FDR will tell us .
Yeti is all ATR 72 . Having lost its Jet-stream in runway excursion and All Smaller aircraft transferred to Tara air . The Airlines also runs Himalaya Airlines Joint Venture to fly Airbus in regional routes . Yeti sadly lost its founder and MD to a Helicopter crash .
Buddha is still the top airline having expanded its fleet of ATR . Sold their 25 yr old beechkrafts
Last edited by Yo_You_Not_You_you; 23rd Jan 2023 at 10:47.
There only two CVR playback facilities in Nepal (the regulator has no such internal capability). Yeti has one and Buddha has one. For obvious reasons the panel doesn't want to use the one at Yeti. For less obvious reasons they aren't comfortable using the one at Buddha. Some are suggesting it should go to France, or perhaps has gone to France already.
The hinge moment is AOA dependent, and the ATR didn't much like the AOA that it was forced to. The pressure distribution on the wing in general from runback doesn't help at all, and does impact the effectiveness of the TE down aileron. The moment change however drove the aileron to command a right roll, as AOA increased through 5 degrees. During the recovery, they appeared to try to keep the recovery rate within the range that they had roll authority, and ran out of air. The certification requirement is to ensure that the control of the aircraft remains normal sense after the stall, but the icing went beyond the expected conditions to be encountered. At a low speed stall with manual, reversible controls the dynamic load is not normally going to be a nuisance. At higher speeds, the force can become problematic. High speed stalls are self limiting, as the stall occurs the force required to enter the stall goes away, but a few tails that have been torn up indicate if you try really really hard you can hold into buffet for long enough to break things.
Re the Saab, I'll PM you a dropbox link... have the report somewhere around. Take home is some of the stuff around the plane has good reasons to be there.
Good point. Roselawn was a hinge moment reversal that gave aileron snatch. The Indon event, it isn't noted in the report but is in the dataset, and shows a point were the wing became distorted from the aileron moment, and the aircraft rolled in the opposite direction. At that point it was still in one piece, not long after it wasn't.
The hinge moment is AOA dependent, and the ATR didn't much like the AOA that it was forced to. The pressure distribution on the wing in general from runback doesn't help at all, and does impact the effectiveness of the TE down aileron. The moment change however drove the aileron to command a right roll, as AOA increased through 5 degrees. During the recovery, they appeared to try to keep the recovery rate within the range that they had roll authority, and ran out of air. The certification requirement is to ensure that the control of the aircraft remains normal sense after the stall, but the icing went beyond the expected conditions to be encountered. At a low speed stall with manual, reversible controls the dynamic load is not normally going to be a nuisance. At higher speeds, the force can become problematic. High speed stalls are self limiting, as the stall occurs the force required to enter the stall goes away, but a few tails that have been torn up indicate if you try really really hard you can hold into buffet for long enough to break things.
Re the Saab, I'll PM you a dropbox link... have the report somewhere around. Take home is some of the stuff around the plane has good reasons to be there.
The hinge moment is AOA dependent, and the ATR didn't much like the AOA that it was forced to. The pressure distribution on the wing in general from runback doesn't help at all, and does impact the effectiveness of the TE down aileron. The moment change however drove the aileron to command a right roll, as AOA increased through 5 degrees. During the recovery, they appeared to try to keep the recovery rate within the range that they had roll authority, and ran out of air. The certification requirement is to ensure that the control of the aircraft remains normal sense after the stall, but the icing went beyond the expected conditions to be encountered. At a low speed stall with manual, reversible controls the dynamic load is not normally going to be a nuisance. At higher speeds, the force can become problematic. High speed stalls are self limiting, as the stall occurs the force required to enter the stall goes away, but a few tails that have been torn up indicate if you try really really hard you can hold into buffet for long enough to break things.
Re the Saab, I'll PM you a dropbox link... have the report somewhere around. Take home is some of the stuff around the plane has good reasons to be there.
WRT the ATR, my fault using the wrong terminology, it was a hinge moment. The airflow over the wing at specific AoA would force the aileron to move with significant force. This would lead to a strong uncommanded roll until AoA was reduced. It was not stall related, and happened at high speed as well. The DGAC got into strife because they had known about the hinge moment since certification, however rollover events in service had continually be called pilot error, until Roselawn...
The video from the cabin, if it was faked, they went to extraordinary lengths. I don't believe that is likely, I fear that is the final moments of unfortunate pax and crew. The spectra of the audio comes out as below, the cell phone ?owner?'s voice is clearly traced, There is a line at 1760-1780Hz that would be interesting to pin down, it has a slight frequency drift, and I doubt that it is blower related, it isn't a simple harmonic of 50Hz or 400Hz. Would be interested in what gives that on an ATR72. If someone has the normal RPM range of the prop, that would be worthwhile. The engines are apparently winding down post accident, the spectra is clear on that, and those are more than likely to be the turbine running down. It isn't that often that a signature of an engine comes up after impact. The prop would have a reinforced 6th harmonic of the shaft rate, which is probably around what... 1100RPM, less than 20Hz shaft, 120Hz blade rate. Harmonics above that would then be at 12th, 18th.. and they don't seem to fit the wind down line, so that is going to be from the turbine. This would be likely classified as unsurvivable due to the attitude at impact, but the video/audio will give some insight into what can and what cannot be done to improve cabin safety. For flight crew, wings level at impact is an imperative, if possible by any means. This audio hints to that. I doubt that meaningful safety enhancement can be made to the cabin survivability for this type of event, but this video should be central to some serious consideration by the adults, if any remain in the building.
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Probable Visual Approach In VMC
hans66; How does this compare with any relevant published procedures?
The video shows the weather to be sunny VMC, so it's conceivable that the crew could have requested and flown a visual approach with a left base leg over the old airport.
The video shows the weather to be sunny VMC, so it's conceivable that the crew could have requested and flown a visual approach with a left base leg over the old airport.
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They were VFR, so visual approaches only . All domestic Flights in Nepal are VFR.
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There are no publisshed procedures for the runway 12 , there are for runway 30 . The flight radar below shows the path of a known runway 12 landing . The fateful flight was doing similar approach on the other side .
India has blocked the installation of ILS system due to some overlap at the other new International Airport , GBIA Gautam Buddha International Airport . Flights are currently closed due to consistent bad visibility for jets .
"India has blocked the installation of ILS system due to some overlap at the other new International Airport , GBIA Gautam Buddha International Airport . Flights are currently closed due to consistent bad visibility for jets ."
Dont understand that, the 2 airports are about 95K apart, they should not interfer with each other.
Dont understand that, the 2 airports are about 95K apart, they should not interfer with each other.
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"India has blocked the installation of ILS system due to some overlap at the other new International Airport , GBIA Gautam Buddha International Airport . Flights are currently closed due to consistent bad visibility for jets ."
Dont understand that, the 2 airports are about 95K apart, they should not interfer with each other.
Dont understand that, the 2 airports are about 95K apart, they should not interfer with each other.
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Electric Blower
Hi FDR, you mentioned that the 1770 hz is not a multiple of a 400 hz supply. If the blower motor is an induction motor then it will have a slip percentage. if this is 12% then that gives a possibility of 2000 hz, which is the 5th harmonic.
Could you calculate the engine spooling down speed from the descending pitch tone..? It must have something to do with the number of blades on the rotors.
Could you calculate the engine spooling down speed from the descending pitch tone..? It must have something to do with the number of blades on the rotors.
Hi FDR, you mentioned that the 1770 hz is not a multiple of a 400 hz supply. If the blower motor is an induction motor then it will have a slip percentage. if this is 12% then that gives a possibility of 2000 hz, which is the 5th harmonic.
Could you calculate the engine spooling down speed from the descending pitch tone..? It must have something to do with the number of blades on the rotors.
Could you calculate the engine spooling down speed from the descending pitch tone..? It must have something to do with the number of blades on the rotors.
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That is right. This a bit longer process would indicate they are careful not to make mistakes and are tying to get a neutral independant report. Good on them . I know many other Sates much more advanced that Nepal which would have already leaked things to the media and deliver "culprits" to cover their backside.
That is right. This a bit longer process would indicate they are careful not to make mistakes and are tying to get a neutral independant report. Good on them . I know many other Sates much more advanced that Nepal which would have already leaked things to the media and deliver "culprits" to cover their backside.
Rather it was about the reported time taken to send them.
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yes I got this too, and while I can understand your frustration , this is Nepal and 11 days is not really unusual.to get things done right in there .. CAAN ( the Nepalese Civil Aviation authority) has considerably improved over the last years, and is well above average compared to other poorer countries in economic difficulies such as Nepal Large airlines such as Buddha or Yeti are far more powerful than some CAAN employees and I am glad to see that they managed to keep their independance here . It took 11 days , but they managed.
Regarding the recorders, and the accident investigation, CAAN is not involved at all; it is not represented on the investigative panel and does not have observer status. So far the panel is undertaking their job seriously and diligently, hence no leaks.
Lastly, anyone interested in possible background factors (NOT root cause) related to this accident would find the latest Nepal AIP Amendment (#2 – 2023), and Amendment 9 of 2022, to be of interest. In a nutshell, there was great pressure to open Pokhara on January 1st, even if things that should have been in place were not.
In any case, it’s a damn sad accident.
Last edited by grizzled; 27th Jan 2023 at 01:20.
