Nepal - Twin Otter with 21 aboard missing, AP is reporting

[Passenger 389]

Small plane with 21 people on board missing in Nepal

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- An airport official says a small plane with 21 people on board has gone missing while flying in a mountainous area in Nepal.

Official Yogendra Kuwar said the plane was on an 18-minute flight Wednesday, but lost contact after takeoff. He said there were no landing strips between the two airports the plane was flying between.

The plane had taken off from Pokhara, a resort town west of Kathmandu, and was heading north to Jomsom, which is the starting point for trekkers going into mountainous areas.

The Twin Otter aircraft was operated by Tara airlines in Nepal.

[Airbubba]

The plane was 9N-AHH and three helos are searching according to a press release on the company website.

[Passenger 389]

AP has now updated its article.

Says 23 were aboard - 21 Nepalis, and 2 foreigners (China, Kuwait).

Poor weather is hampering search.

The police chief at Jomsom, Harihari Yogi, said they had reports from local villagers of hearing a loud explosion near the small village of Rupshe and attempts were being made to reach there.

[The destination] Jomson is popular for both foreign tourists visiting the Mount Annapurna and Mustang region for trekking, and for Hindu pilgrims visiting the Muktinath temple.

[bloom]

23? 19 seats and crew of 2. That's 21 Where the other two ? In the aisle? Cargo bin? Unless two lap kids ....There are no overhead bins.

[Nemrytter]

There were 20 pax (incl 2 infants) and 3 crew.

[readywhenreaching]

Avn Minister said the plane just has been found in jungle in Mygdi District. No word of survivors..

http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com (http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-02-24/tara-air-missing-plane-found-crashed-in-myagdi.html)

[flynerd]

Latest report I see is that firey wreckage found. No survivors.
R.I.P.

[The Ancient Geek]

Sadly another chapter in Nepal's poor safety record.
Flying in challenging mountain terrain with unpredictable weather and winds is never going to be easy, those pilots have got balls.

What, if anything, can be done to improve safety ?

[5 APUs captain]

Recent crashes in Nepal:

8 October 2008, Yeti Airlines 103, Kathmandu to Lukla, crashed in Lukla, 18 fatalities

24 August 2010, Agni Air 101, Kathmandu to Lukla, crashed in Makwanpur, 14 fatalities

25 September 2011, Buddha Air 103, Mountain flight, crashed in Lalitpur, 19 fatalities

14 May 2012, Agni Air CHT, Pokhara to Jomsom, crashed in Jomsom, 15 fatalities

28 September 2012, Sita Air 601, Kathmandu to Lukla, crashed in Kathmandu, 19 fatalities

16 May 2013, Nepal Airlines 555, Pokhara to Jomsom, crashed in Jomsom, no fatalities

17 February 2014, Nepal Airlines, Pokhara to Jumla, crashed in Arghakhanchi, 18 fatalities

[BMW-Z4]

NOT flying VFR in IMC would assist with safety. Without inferring this was causal in this case it certainly is frequent practice, causal with other accidents and no doubt future events until they change.

[beebo]

Mate flying there said wx was absolute filth when the plane departed, and not as the company spokesman reported...

[RAT 5]

I haven't seen Nepal territory, but I have seen Susi Air in Indonesia & PNG. It might be similar. If ever self-preservation out weighted 'get home-itis' & 'person-itis' I would have thought it would be in this type of terrain. If in doubt there is no doubt.
Assuming no technical malfunction. How does a Twin Otter perform on 1 engine at these density altitudes?

[ATC Watcher]

RAT5 : This part of Nepal is very unlike New guinea. I have been flying myself around Pokhara 3 years ago. Pokhara itself is relatively low ( 2700 ft) , Jomson is up the pass considerably higher (8800ft) and wind is often a problem, although at this time ( early morning) it should be OK.
Weather can change very rapidly there.

More recent news here :https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/tara-air-nepal-plane-crash-bad-weather-affects-rescue-op-body-collection/
So getting into IMC resulting in CFIT looks too familiar

All domestic Flighst in nepal are VFR. But commercial pressure is intense and competition too. Very sad, Brand new Twin otter too.

[The Ancient Geek]

Single engine performance in the Twotter is not a problem in these high but cold conditions. Wind is an issue in the Himalayas, a howling gale can spring
up from nowhere and have variable direction especially when flying up the valleys.
Most flights happen in the early morning when the air is more stable.

[BMW-Z4]

There really does need to be some intervention and pressure from the tourist operators and government here. Intense competition / pressure does not help the Nepalese all down the chain who are trying to make a living out of tourism. Every time this happens more people are deterred from flying within Nepal. Flying in and out of Lukla is a risk but the crews are very good at this. What they are not good at doing is not flying in thick cloud, in unforgivable terrain, and often with no on-board nav and no approach technology.And overtaking each other on the way to Lukla and return - IN CLOUD. Absolute madness and not like PNG at all. Much more dangerous. Fix this, fix it now because I really do like this place, these people and this culture. I want to go back but under different risk levels than today.:=:=

[_Phoenix]

Flying in challenging mountain terrain with unpredictable weather and winds is never going to be easy, those pilots have got balls.
What, if anything, can be done to improve safety ?
Synthetic vision mandatory for this kind of operation.

[172driver]

Synthetic vision mandatory for this kind of operation.

Is the required database available for that region?

[ATC Watcher]

Synthetic vision mandatory for this kind of operation.
Agree but with which money ? and as 172 driver says : who is going to make and pay for the database ?
Reality check : Nepal is a the bottom of the list of poor Countries in the world and the recent earthquake is not helping improving things.

Most domestic aircraft on the Nepalese register , e.g the Dorniers , the old Twins and the Beechs have a Garmin 296 taped on the dashboard for navigation . No ILS anywhere , not even in Kathmandu. Even the Buddha ATRs fly VFR inside Nepal, and Buddah is one of the good airlines.

Ironically this brand new Twin Otter had ( according my info) a Garmin glass cockpit and terrain/EGPWs on the display, probably one of the only ones around, so I do not think navigation was an issue.
The route to fly from PKR to JMO is well known, is it inside a deep valley with 7000 peaks on either side , where the a/c crashed you have the Tukuche a 6900m on the left and the Anapurna South at 7200m on the right. If you can see the ground and follow the river you get to Jomsom without any problems.
My wild guess is that then entered bad wx lost sight of the flat ground below and decided to turn around and something went wrong during the 180.
But speculating .
Now, those who have ever attempted a 180 in bad wx ahead in a deep valley getting smaller and rising in up can throw the first stones at the crew.
And for those who always have a technological answer Mr. Garmin is not going to help you perform that 180 either, on the contrary even..

[The Ancient Geek]

Very sad, Brand new Twin otter too.

Is this the first loss of a -400 ?

[aterpster]

ATC Watcher:

No ILS anywhere , not even in Kathmandu.

That's because the terrain won't permit siting an ILS. The government paid to have a French IFP developer design a quite good RNP AR approach to Runway 02.

[rugmuncher]

The Ancient Geek
Quote:
Very sad, Brand new Twin otter too.
Is this the first loss of a -400 ?

Yes, it is.

INDEX_CURRENT (http://www.twinotterarchive.com/DHC-6_Index_new.html)

[ATC Watcher]

aterpster :the terrain won't permit siting an ILS. The government paid to have a French IFP developer design a quite good RNP AR approach to Runway 02
Yep, I know all too well about both ( first the change in the virtual glide slope, then the RNP-AR) But if you read carefully the accident report of the TK A330 you will see the limits of the Nepalese CAA. But I do not blame them ,after these recent series of accidents we should be more inclined to help them than to blame them.

[aterpster]

ATC Watcher:

Yep, I know all too well about both ( first the change in the virtual glide slope, then the RNP-AR) But if you read carefully the accident report of the TK A330 you will see the limits of the Nepalese CAA. But I do not blame them ,after these recent series of accidents we should be more inclined to help them than to blame them.

The database error at the time of the THY accident did not cause the accident. In any case, THY's flight operations management would have caught the database error had they "bench" validated the amendment to the procedure for the displaced threshold.

RNP AR is supposed to go through database validation with any amendment.

[ATC Watcher]

aterpster:
Of course, but I was not referring to that but to all the small failures of the CAAN all along the report , some of them summarized in the Conclusions and safety recommendations pages in the end of the report :

From memory : ATIS not operating/ not daily checked , MET offfice not understating SPECI, , APP ATC not passing current Wx, , AIS issuing/cancelling AICs not understanding Airac Cycles, lack training courses for controllers , etc.. the 2 sets of coordinates for the threshold is only one small part. But again to be fair, what the CAAN did here is not much different from what is done in most of the poor other countries in the world.

In a fully developed country the airport would have been moved 20 Km East in the valley ( old plan) a long time ago. But lack of funds prevents it, now after the latest earthquake, this plan is moved decades again.

Back to this Tara Air accident : Domestic Air travel in Nepal is the only alternative to days of bus on treacherous roads in the country and the only way except walking, to reach some communities in the winter. Plus a lot of these small airlines make most of their money carrying tourists. Pressure to fly is great. The Pilots are good, some very good even, so it works most of the time, but the regulator is weak , very weak because aviation is a must, it brings desperately needed foreign currencies via the tourists and there is no alternative.

[cats_five]

I've no been on an internal flight in Nepal. but the buses were terrifying in part because the roads in the Sivalik Hills leave so much to be desired. We went along a road where a section was clearly not so far from falling, and the remains of vehicles that have come off the road are visible all over the place. Down on the Ganges flood plain it was somewhat less terrifying.