Nepal Plane Crash

[scr1]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64280480
Dozens of people have been killed after a plane with 72 people on board crashed near an airport in central Nepal.
The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara crashed on landing before catching fire.
Videos posted on social media show an aircraft flying low over a populated area before banking sharply.
At least 68 people are confirmed to have died, officials said. Several critically injured survivors were taken to hospital, unconfirmed reports said.

[70 Mustang]

Saw a thread on TV this morning. Difficult to find more? Yeti
There were 72 people on the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft operated by Nepal's Yeti Airlines,
Pokhara.

[freshgasflow]

This site has a video. Loss of control in the air.This link has the video (https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/naepal-crash-flight-loses-control-mid-air-before-crash-watch-101673764872467.html)

[procede]

That looks like a stall.

[treadigraph]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndEeTbG8KiI

[Rampi]

Reported as 9N-ANC / YT691 KTM-PKR / 15.1.23

​​​​​​Sad.

[Auxtank]

Some more info;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64280480

conditions looked cavok.

[The Bartender]

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/980x2000/screenshot_20230115_090953_flightradar24_dd61df91d49ba6c5c7b 9cc6c6dce5938bd72497a.jpg

This aircraft had some interesting speed & altitude-data. Other ATR's in the area doesn't do that. This aircraft seem to have had this feature for at least the past year.

[Steel City]

Are the flaps deployed in that video?

[Matt48]

It sure does, dropped the left wing.

[akaSylvia]

Flightradar24 are reviewing the data:

> This aircraft was equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data. We are downloading high resolution data and verifying the data quality.

https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1614530313950035968

[parkfell]

Looking at the video, the aircraft was on a circling approach in a left turn, presumably below the appropriate speed, stalled with increasing angle of bank & increasing rate of descent.
Just why such an event occurred is likely to be revealed from the FDR & CVR. Maintenance records etc will also be examined.
Looks like a totally avoidable accident on first inspection.

[RiSq]

That video is clearly a stall - but interestingly it looks like they were continuing to pull back on the controls - late mechanical failure and trying to extend the glide to the threshold or clear ground ultimately dropping the left wing and beyond recovery?

Hard to tell because of audio distortion but doesn’t sound like the engines were spooling up or at TOGA power - its actually very quiet (despite the audio distortion) all the way to impact?

Was looking at the prop to see if they were both under power and not feathered - am sure the experts here will analyse that shortly.

how close to the threshold was this? I have friends in Pokhara so hopefully they all OK.

RIP to all involved.

It is worth noting that this a brand new Airport as well. Pokhara is a massive tourist destination but until recently didn’t have a regional airport. Although it shouldn’t be a factor, unfamiliarity may have played a part?

[DaveReidUK]

Can anyone discern how much flap - if any - is deployed?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/472x338/pokharax2_00c2532a9044f2c01db0a20fb23a7b92e0b3514a.jpg

[GoingAroundAgain]

Yes, there seemed to be a distinct pitch up just before the stall. If the sound on the video is the turbine noise at least one is running, but at a constant rate. Hard to tell from a video what the props are doing except turning, but it looks like it is late finals if 1.5 km to airport.

I presume these have the usual primary and secondary stall warnings, so possible that there is another power related problem we’re not seeing here and this is a stretch the glide incident.

It seems like an odd sort of accident. I see that the ATR doesn’t have autothrottle, just notch presets.

[mickjoebill]

Aerial video of the extraordinary accident site.....
https://twitter.com/vivekbajpai84/status/1614556758487478274?t=Y1xN8c1v9WNJjyepn-dCwA&s=19

[kghjfg]

Can anyone discern how much flap - if any - is deployed?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/472x338/pokharax2_00c2532a9044f2c01db0a20fb23a7b92e0b3514a.jpg

Exactly what I was thinking, I’ve just been watching other ATR 72-500 landings on YouTube.

That AoA looks (very) wrong, if they have flap, it’s hard to believe it didn’t stall earlier.

best glide speed when clean I presume isn’t any where near the stall on that aircraft.

tbh, who knows what’s happening ?

going to need the voice recorders as stated above.

[DroneDog]

Some sharpening and tweaks applied.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/472x338/yeti_d026cdd9dd6c60744e76f79c4b24ccb4640d5574.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/472x338/yeti_sharpen_motion_22f442bc4c16f259eeeb12ef76d87ea16e4a8e0c .jpg

[mickjoebill]

The airport opened on Jan 1st 2023.

Unconfirmed Twitter reports from Indian media:
Pilot, male had been a captain for 25 yearsCopilot, female for 1 year.
Aircraft approach was in the opposite direction to what was instructed by atc.

Mjb

[aeromech3]

Was it just chance it missed the habited areas, both sides of the gorge, after that steep turn!

[DaveReidUK]

Some sharpening and tweaks applied.

Thanks, I did try sharpening in Photoshop before posting, but decided the results weren't worth it.

[Tom Bangla]

Was it just chance it missed the habited areas, both sides of the gorge, after that steep turn!

I'd expect so if it was a stall as the footage seems to suggest.

[ennui]

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/768x1024/4c88e634_1cd2_4c3b_995a_98262427ed5d_612abd99275889fc6f1779a 269a5e124b8da1f6f.png
To me stall seems due excessive aoa. Perhaps incorrect approach config?

[172_driver]

Unconfirmed Twitter reports from Indian media:
Pilot, male had been a captain for 25 yearsCopilot, female for 1 year.
Aircraft approach was in the opposite direction to what was instructed by atc.

Wasn't that similar to US-Bangla Q400 crash i Kathmandu? Experienced captain, young female FO, lining up for opposite runway to what ATC belived?

[Bonzo777]

KATHMANDU, Jan 15 (Reuters) - At least 68 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, the country's Civil Aviation Authority said, in the worst air crash in three decades in the small Himalayan nation.

Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, went down.

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.

The plane made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in its statement. "Then it crashed."

Police official Ajay K.C. said rescue workers were having difficulty reaching the site in a gorge between two hills near the tourist town's airport.

https://cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/DUOOOMKXLNO6RATPSC6FGRDAME.jpg

[chazontour]

The airport opened on Jan 1st 2023.

Unconfirmed Twitter reports from Indian media:
Pilot, male had been a captain for 25 yearsCopilot, female for 1 year.
Aircraft approach was in the opposite direction to what was instructed by atc.

Mjb

Can't help wonder if the reason they may have been on the opposite approach to VNPR as instructed is they were initially approaching the old airport PKR.

As VNPR has only been open for 15 days it's conceivable they may mistakenly followed habit and approached the old airport, realised the mistake at quite a low altitude, tried to adjust course to VNPR in challenging circumstances but sadly failed to do so.

[jolihokistix]

Just visually, it reminds me of TransAsia Flight 235, Taipei in 2015, where they shut down the wrong engine.
TransAsia Airways Flight 235 - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAsia_Airways_Flight_235)

[michaelbinary]

Its pretty clear on the video.
Aircraft can be seen to be lifting the nose.
It stalls.
Followed by a classic wing drop.
Followed by crash.

Why, is another question completely, so stop guessing. !!
RIP Pilots, crew, and passengers.

[Flyingmac]

Possible attempt to salvage a mistaken final approach to the old airport into left base for the new one?

[medod]

Can't help wonder if the reason they may have been on the opposite approach to VNPR as instructed is they were initially approaching the old airport PKR.

As VNPR has only been open for 15 days it's conceivable they may mistakenly followed habit and approached the old airport, realised the mistake at quite a low altitude, tried to adjust course to VNPR in challenging circumstances but sadly failed to do so.

"I've been flying 25 years I know what I'm doing" captain, inexperienced co-pilot couldn't overcome the cockpit gradient to point out that's a really bad idea. Maybe!

[safetypee]

"Why You Should Stop Reading News" (accident analysis posts)

Our obsession with being informed makes it hard to think long-term. We spend hours consuming news (posts) because we want to be informed. The problem is that ill-considered posts do not make us informed – quite the opposite. The more news we consume, the more misinformed we become.

News is, by definition, something that doesn’t last. It exists for only a moment before it changes. As news has become easier to distribute and cheaper to produce, the quality has decreased, and the quantity has increased, making it nearly impossible to find the signal in the noise.

Rarely do we stop to ask ourselves questions about what we consume:
Is this good for me? Is this dense with detailed information? Is this important? Is this going to stand the test of time? Is the person writing someone who is well-informed on the issue? Asking those questions makes it clear the news isn’t good for you.

What can you do differently?
Part of the answer is to spend less time consuming information and more time thinking.

https://fs.blog/stop-reading-news/

[freshgasflow]

Wasn't that similar to US-Bangla Q400 crash i Kathmandu? Experienced captain, young female FO, lining up for opposite runway to what ATC belived?
But how does that connect to this crash? Whatever the runway, this event should not have happened.

[ATC Watcher]

Wasn't that similar to US-Bangla Q400 crash i Kathmandu? Experienced captain, young female FO, lining up for opposite runway to what ATC belived?
Or possibly someone in India googling " accident Nepal " and posting the old inlo, as a new one mixing the two , Wait until we have confirmed info . For me uncorfirmed info coming from India goes into the bin ...

@ safetypee and michaelbinary : +1

[c53204]

This looks almost identical to the TransAsia ATR72 crash

[DroneDog]

I tired some AI tools to sharpen the image; also there is a link below to youtube I tired some AI again on the video.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1920x1080/yeti_6_sharpenai_motion_90ca4a71da5deaefa3793f65e69204c49aa1 a280.jpg



Youtube video: https://youtu.be/xWmAkxQvA1g

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Pilot Lining for the wrong airport is outrageous . This was the plane's 3rd flight on the route in 3 hours .

Pilot is very experienced . He was instructor as well . He was looking for early retirement at 60 years . Limit is 65 .

Co-Pilot is widow of a pilot who died 15 years ago . She pursued aviation to move on her husband's step . . She had about 100 hours . It was her literal last flight as a copilot to cross the 100 hour mark.

Edit : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64299882A trailblazer, Anju was one of just six women employed by the airline as pilots, and had flown close to 6,400 hours.

"She was a full captain at the airline who had done solo flights," Sudarshan Bartaula from Yeti Airlines said. "She was a brave woman."

100 hours could be on the Type . Or Wrong reporting altogether as bbc does not report on this .

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Disclaimer : Now Confirmed from various sources of being Real Live Stream From inside. Video Continues After the Impact as well .

https://twitter.com/ShaunakCy/status/1614640856937660417

https://twitter.com/Ak470470Kumar/status/1614615840493830147

Is this for Real , the footage from Inside . 30 seconds in .The Location seem correct , it shows the Stadium . . No panic in the aircraft before the sudden roll as seen in other video . Timing of this .

https://www.onlinekhabar.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pokhara-plane-accident-place-1024x625.jpg

[MLHeliwrench]

https://twitter.com/ShaunakCy/status/1614640856937660417

Is this for Real , the footage from Inside . 30 seconds in .The Location seem correct , it shows the Stadium . . No panic in the aircraft before the sudden roll as seen in other video . Timing of this .

https://www.onlinekhabar.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pokhara-plane-accident-place-1024x625.jpg

could it really be as simple as a too slow and too tight circle to land on a bright sunny day?

[Bluffontheriver123]

Such a shame, RIP. As other posters have said, both engines seem to be turning, high AoA, wing looks clean, can't see the rudder but looks like a classic skid stall to me.

[ChiefT]

Pilot Lining for the wrong airport is outrageous . This was the plane's 3rd flight on the route in 3 hours .

Pilot is very experienced . He was instructor as well . He was looking for early retirement at 60 years . Limit is 65 .

Co-Pilot is widow of a pilot who died 15 years ago . She pursued aviation to move on her husband's step . . She had about 100 hours . It was her literal last flight as a copilot to cross the 100 hour mark.

I don't think we can disclose that the wrong airport was chosen.

At this stage we cannot disclose anything.

RIP all souls lost...

[vilas]

could it really be as simple as a too slow and too tight circle to land on a bright sunny day?
Some part of the video is perhaps genuine but it's a serious crash which killed every one so who kept shooting the crash and fire?

[buzzer90]

Some part of the video is perhaps genuine but it's a serious crash which killed every one so who kept shooting the crash and fire?

If it was a live stream then it wouldn't have needed anyone to do anything I imagine.

Still not sure it's genuine.

[RiSq]

Some part of the video is perhaps genuine but it's a serious crash which killed every one so who kept shooting the crash and fire?

If you watch it all, there is a subsequent bounce after the initial fire. Then it slides, then I am assuming went off the gorge, at which point the phone went tumbling

Its therefore that I highly suspect the video is real. What a sad thing to witness.

The only blessing is that it was extremely quick.

[gearlever]

Some part of the video is perhaps genuine but it's a serious crash which killed every one so who kept shooting the crash and fire?

Instagram live?

[JanetFlight]

That last horrible clip from inside we can see flaps extended in some frame per seconds... May all RIP 🙏

[Loose rivets]

Stepping frame by frame in the video where the starboard wing tip goes under the roof soffit, just as the tip reaches the roof there is a puff of grey around the rear of the port engine.

I've looked at it a dozen times and I doubt there's enough energy for adiabatic cloud, also the colour is not right. Just can't make out what causes it. Light through the prop? But it seems to exceed the prop radius.

[Flyhighfirst]

Its pretty clear on the video.
Aircraft can be seen to be lifting the nose.
It stalls.
Followed by a classic wing drop.
Followed by crash.

Why, is another question completely, so stop guessing. !!
RIP Pilots, crew, and passengers.
You can't be serious. You just make a guess and make your guess a fact as to the how, then order everyone else to stop guessing the why?

[Flyhighfirst]

Instagram live?

On a plane with no Wi-Fi. Think it might be kind of hard to connect to instagram.

[ArturoPPL]

It seem to me a very clean wing and I can not see the flaps down.
Can be a problem with the picture or the real think?

[Mr Albert Ross]

(From above):
To me stall seems due excessive aoa.
Every stall is due to excessive AOA.

[michaelbinary]

You can't be serious. You just make a guess and make your guess a fact as to the how, then order everyone else to stop guessing the why?
Its not a guess at all.
Everybody can see it, its pretty obvious to any pilot.
The nose lifted.
The plane stalled.
The left wing dropped.
It crashed.

Why it did that, I have no idea, and thats what people should stop guessing about.

[QDM360]

https://www.aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20230115-0
"According to the published Standard Instrument Arrival procedure, an aircraft has to intercept the Initial Approach Fix (IAF), the POK VOR located at the old airport, at a heading of 087° and then turn right for runway 12. Distance from the IAF to the runway threshold is 2,4 km (1.3 nm)."

The old airport is just over a mile away in a straight line from the new airport's runway 12. You have to overfly the old airport to make it to the new runway. Nothing is "wrong" about that...

[Kefdeclare]

On a plane with no Wi-Fi. Think it might be kind of hard to connect to instagram.
the video looks so smooth(?)

[Tu.114]

This is a horrible accident and I´d rather not have seen those videos.

Allow an old Turboprop driver some musings. As is obvious, the ATR is a T-tailed turboprop. There are differences to a jet, both system and handling wise.

First of all, let me stick with the previously made assumption that an aerodynamic stall was somehow involved, which is not too far fetched judging from the video shown.

On an aicrraft with this configuration, there ought to be a stick shaker and a stick pusher installed that fire in that order with an approaching stall but way before the flow separates. I would be very interested to hear whether those were in working condition. Both ought to rattle the crew a good moment before the actual stall occurs - in the video, there seems to be no fighting those systems showing as happened to the Dash 8 in Buffalo. But neither do I observe any movement at all that I´d link to the actions of a stick pusher, which strikes me as odd.

The proper reaction on the Dash (I am standing by to be corrected by an ATR rated colleague here) is as in most aircraft: put the nose down, roll the wings level. The turboprop engines bring an addition to this: the power levers (and, system dependent, the condition levers) are to be firewalled. Those are MUCH more responsive than a jet engine, high or low bypass, and, by virtue of the prop in front of the wing, will add substantial energy to the airflow within shortest time. Had this happened in the case being discussed here, it would most likely been audible on the videos that showed up here.

I am not going to guess on causes here. But if there was an actual flow separation involved, this would not be the root cause but the final blow. The first slices of Swiss Cheese must have been passed much earlier.

[s_bakmeijer]

This is a horrible accident and I´d rather not have seen those videos.

Allow an old Turboprop driver some musings. As is obvious, the ATR is a T-tailed turboprop. There are differences to a jet, both system and handling wise.

First of all, let me stick with the previously made assumption that an aerodynamic stall was somehow involved, which is not too far fetched judging from the video shown.

On an aicrraft with this configuration, there ought to be a stick shaker and a stick pusher installed that fire in that order with an approaching stall but way before the flow separates. I would be very interested to hear whether those were in working condition. Both ought to rattle the crew a good moment before the actual stall occurs - in the video, there seems to be no fighting those systems showing as happened to the Dash 8 in Buffalo. But neither do I observe any movement at all that I´d link to the actions of a stick pusher, which strikes me as odd.

The proper reaction on the Dash (I am standing by to be corrected by an ATR rated colleague here) is as in most aircraft: put the nose down, roll the wings level. The turboprop engines bring an addition to this: the power levers (and, system dependent, the condition levers) are to be firewalled. Those are MUCH more responsive than a jet engine, high or low bypass, and, by virtue of the prop in front of the wing, will add substantial energy to the airflow within shortest time. Had this happened in the case being discussed here, it would most likely been audible on the videos that showed up here.

I am not going to guess on causes here. But if there was an actual flow separation involved, this would not be the root cause but the final blow. The first slices of Swiss Cheese must have been passed much earlier.


You my friend should start a column in here
its like stating the obvious but I didn't need to think
Thanks for your opinion and may those souls rest peacefully

[fisher22]

On a plane with no Wi-Fi. Think it might be kind of hard to connect to instagram.

He didn't have his phone in airplane mode obviously, you can easily pick up service from nearby towers at that altitude. It's not so hard to figure out.
​​​

[ChiefT]

Possible attempt to salvage a mistaken final approach to the old airport into left base for the new one?
That's what my guess is too

[RatherBeFlying]

I don't see any nose down attempt to recover from the apparent stall. It takes some willpower to stuff the nose down at 300', but I'm still here to tell you it just worked for me - in a glider.

There's a moment of surprise, WTF is this?!, and incredulity when it goes pear shaped. Keeping the stick back won't work.

In my case I was caught by a vortex / downburst downwind of terrain, but it looks pretty flat in this case.

[ChiefT]

Pure Speculation: The pilots appeared to be on the alignment towards the old airport's RWY 22 instead of the new airport's RWY 12 which is where it is supposed to land, as seen by the location of the stadium and the barren land from the left window view.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1200x2000/20230115_202838_72b62e08124085ca434f861e27001804c23556e7.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1667x1019/20230115_202845_705d73170ca43dd07ce8fe772e1e60b33c21711b.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1667x1047/20230115_202848_32814616db330f1799912c2f330b0cc8112d9b17.jpg

[michaelbinary]

If that video is real. then
1s you can see plane passing Pokhara football stadium
2s far field is the cricket ground with the centre pitch covered, the near field is the anapurna skate park
3-7s you can see the left wing tip drop to enter a left turn.
7+s the road from bottom to top of the screen with the kink in it, puts the plane about 300ft altitude over and approx halfway down the old airfield runway.
this is 2K from the threshold of runway 12 of the new airport and requires an immediate steep 90 degree left turn, which the plane didnt make.

[viatheairporthold]

On an aicrraft with this configuration, there ought to be a stick shaker and a stick pusher installed that fire in that order with an approaching stall but way before the flow separates. I would be very interested to hear whether those were in working condition. Both ought to rattle the crew a good moment before the actual stall occurs - in the video, there seems to be no fighting those systems showing as happened to the Dash 8 in Buffalo. But neither do I observe any movement at all that I´d link to the actions of a stick pusher, which strikes me as odd.

Stick pusher would be inhibited below 500 agl

[Tu.114]

...which may well be explained by the approach procedure flown. They arrived from the east, so a circling approach via the north would almost certainly have taken them past the old airport. An attempt to land on the old runway, by mistake or intention, would have required a much lower profile than what is shown in the material.

The new airport has been in operation for... was it 2 weeks? Also, its fresh concrete runway that, from experience, is not built within a night or two is not exactly hard to see in severe CAVOK. I would hazard a guess and say that the crew not only has landed there before the accident flight but also was well aware of what airport they were supposed to land on.

An approach chart would probably save much speculation here. Unfortunately, I do not have access to any of that area of the world.

Edit:
One more point. Let us avoid one common trap here and give the deceased colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Details like place of birth, passport-issuing nation or location residence say nothing about collective aeronautical capabilities.

[RiSq]

If that video is real. then
1s you can see plane passing Pokhara football stadium
2s far field is the cricket ground with the centre pitch covered, the near field is the anapurna skate park
3-7s you can see the left wing tip drop to enter a left turn.
7+s the road from bottom to top of the screen with the kink in it, puts the plane about 300ft altitude over and approx halfway down the old airfield runway.
this is 2K from the threshold of runway 12 of the new airport and requires an immediate steep 90 degree left turn, which the plane didnt make.


there is frame skip as it was captured from a live stream - presumably with patchy signal.

you can see it happen in the video - like it skips 2-3 seconds of real time.

this often occurs with live streaming - but it cannot provide a fully accurate timeline.

you can see the altitude difference via the window when it occurs as well. When the camera switches back to the cabin, look up the aisle in reference to the shot you see and the camera holder, you can see the nose is beginning to pitch and the bank angle increase, before it finally stalls and drops real fast.


it is real and the person allegedly filming, i have been told by someone in Pokhara, is on the manifest.

[canyonblue737]

"I've been flying 25 years I know what I'm doing" captain, inexperienced co-pilot couldn't overcome the cockpit gradient to point out that's a really bad idea. Maybe!

article about how the female pilot was apparently doing Captain UOE and the male pilot was a Check Airman. https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/nepal-plane-crash-co-pilot-anju-slated-to-become-pilot-2321869-2023-01-15

[Uplinker]

RIP, a dreadful day.

Sudden double engine failure perhaps ?

And, yes, we are going to think and talk about what might have happened. It implies no disrespect, but pilots will instinctively wonder what went wrong, it is in the nature of our job.

[22/04]

And, yes, we are going to think and talk about what might have happened. It implies no disrespect, but pilots will instinctively wonder what went wrong, it is in the nature of our job.

And it helps to us to re-enforce behavior. Found myself right base in a glider tug with more tailwind than expected. Watching recent CL215 crash in Greece was a reminder to avid highly banked final turn with stick coming aft.

[guadaMB]

I'm not guessing anything about this horrible accident. One thing is sure: it happened.
Let the investigators to work and arrive to conclusions. This make take time.
BUT:
Let me be suspicious about the video, with all my respects if I'm wrong and the guy in mustard is dead in the crash.
The TIMING puzzles me.
Once the FOOTBALL STADIUM is being seen with the tennis courts before and immediately the SETI RIVER and the 22 heading of the "old airport" and based on different media info and a couple of photos (one in this thread), the place of crash has to be at 28.196869 : 83.984673.
The distance from where the stadium is seen the last time and the place of crash is exactly 1000 meters (0,62 mile).
Video timing: from the last view of the Stadium to the supposed crash it takes 17 seconds TO THE "CRASH MOMENT". The AC was flying slow. To spend 17 seconds to make 1000 meters the real speed had to be in the region of 210-220 km/h (130-132 knots). THAT AC wasn't flying at 130 knots after what we can see in the video from the TERRACE (stalling moment).
Another suspicious element: the fire begins almost the very moment the AC crashes with very good "resolution": THAT'S A FIRE.
Now to the matter: IF THE VIDEO COMES FROM INDIA take it with a pinch of salt.
The "movie" maybe taken some day between Jan 1st (the day of the new airport inauguration) and yesterday and clever hands made it just to... don't have the proper word to describe these fake actions. IF IT'S A FAKE...

[mobov98423]

the video is real
stop it with this nonsense

here it is with blurred faces, longer duration and much better audio

go to youtube, channel @germanaviation2481 and he has it

[michaelbinary]

Well the video from within the plane isnt a fake, it ties in with google maps etc and it also begs the question what on earth was a plane doing at around 300+feet half way down the old runway and starting a left turn as if to line up with the new 12 runway. ?. Whatever you think about the crash bit and whether the fire bit is tacked on, its a very odd place for a plane to be, neither landing at the old airfield or lined up to land at the new.

[22/04]

Does anyone have a METAR for the time of the accident- just wondering if the gorge was a factor?

[jeepjeep]

Here are two stills of the wings from the streamed interior video.
First is 10sec into video.
Second still is 44sec into the video.
The spin rotation started around 51sec.
The impact was around 57sec.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/619x848/nepal_flap10_9bf73705407db1e816f3211ef8255a495bcc9bb0.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/796x917/nepal_flap_44_37f2c1220d24ced4f8ca54f47739756372f8ab76.jpg

[Kraftstoffvondesibel]

Nothing but pure speculation, so ignore if you aren’t in the mood:
Rumors has it this was an older,very experienced, near pension age captain with a quite fresh co-pilot.
What if the captain had a medical event gradually getting to him on approach? Reverted to experience and aimed for the old airport, realising his mistake but was incapacitated, out of energy and unable to correct the situation or transfer control. Even with the best CRM in the world, that could be a tricky situation with such a cockpit gradient?

[das Uber Soldat]

Its not a guess at all.
Everybody can see it, its pretty obvious to any pilot.
The nose lifted.
The plane stalled.
The left wing dropped.
It crashed.

Why it did that, I have no idea, and thats what people should stop guessing about.
It's a self stated rumour website. People have been speculating about every crash that has ever occurred during this site's existence and thats never going to change. Stop clicking on crash threads if you don't like it.

As for the incident, as someone unfortunate enough to have a few thousand on type, seems like confused crew forgot that aviate comes before navigate. My question is, the atr has roll spoilers. Yet I don't see them at any stage of the crash. That seems odd. Rudder isn't used to counter roll in stall recovery in the atr. Nor is the stick pusher inhibited below 500ft, at least from what I can find in my fcom. Stand to be corrected there.

Strange one.

[piperboy84]

Dragging it in at the back end of the power curve and pushed it too far resulting in a stall/spin? The kind of approach you’d do in a STOL into a short field.

[givemewings]

On a plane with no Wi-Fi. Think it might be kind of hard to connect to instagram.
they were low enough that he could easily have connected to mobile towers. As ex CC, I've caught out pax doipaxthis on no-phone aircraft like turboprops (not ATR)

Who of us hasn't accidentally left the phone on and landed to a bunch of texts received once the phone was low enough.

If genuine, how horrible. Surprised Twitter didn't have a sensitive content warning, it's awful.

Given the movement of the phone, it seemit to match the movement... sudden roll, impact, slide, pause, slide (presumably the gorge/top of the slope where you see the major section of the fuselage)

horrible for his family too. RIP to all.

[viatheairporthold]

As for the incident, as someone unfortunate enough to have a few thousand on type, seems like confused crew forgot that aviate comes before navigate. My question is, the atr has roll spoilers. Yet I don't see them at any stage of the crash. That seems odd. Rudder isn't used to counter roll in stall recovery in the atr. Nor is the stick pusher inhibited below 500ft, at least from what I can find in my fcom. Stand to be corrected there.


"Stick pusher activation is inhibited:
- on ground
- during 10 seconds after take off
- in flight, provided radio altimeter is operative, when the aircraft descends below 500ft"

[givemewings]

Is this for Real , the footage from Inside . 30 seconds in .The Location seem correct , it shows the Stadium . . No panic in the aircraft before the sudden roll as seen in other video . Timing of this

Might be worth putting a disclaimer that it's the accident flight. Can be read "before" as in a prior flight. I was expecting a run of the mill approach and land vid from a previous day, not the actual accident on film.

[ZFT]

It's a self stated rumour website. People have been speculating about every crash that has ever occurred during this site's existence and thats never going to change. Stop clicking on crash threads if you don't like it.

As for the incident, as someone unfortunate enough to have a few thousand on type, seems like confused crew forgot that aviate comes before navigate. My question is, the atr has roll spoilers. Yet I don't see them at any stage of the crash. That seems odd. Rudder isn't used to counter roll in stall recovery in the atr. Nor is the stick pusher inhibited below 500ft, at least from what I can find in my fcom. Stand to be corrected there.

Strange one.
I recall roll spoilers were inhibited below a certain speed?

[ehwatezedoing]

And it helps to us to re-enforce behavior. Found myself right base in a glider tug with more tailwind than expected. Watching recent CL215 crash in Greece was a reminder to avid highly banked final turn with stick coming aft.
It was a CL415 and it was in Italy.

[22/04]

28.196869 : 83.984673

Thanks and sorry

[Propjet88]

Question for any ATR pilots: In light of the fact that a Stick Pusher is fitted, presumably as a certification requirement, does the ATR have any aerodynamic pitch up characteristics approaching the stall?

Fly Safe
PJ88

[chazontour]

Naive question, is the Captain UOE check ride something that could cause unusual levels of anxiety? say like doing your driving test?

Also is it correct to say that the female pilot would have been in the left seat whilst the Check Airman would have been in the right seat acting out the role of first officer (even though he was PIC)?

There's a tragic and unnerving similarity in the final moments of this flight and the flight the female pilot's husband died in on 21 June 2006 mentioned in the article posted by canyonblue737

[RiSq]

The thing I keep coming back to is power.

Even in cleaned up videos - there is a distinct lack of audio from the turboprops.

its almost sounds like the throttles are idle? Which seems really odd.

1. The crew didn’t seem to have height or speed to play with. The aircraft did seem unusually low.

2. aircraft is entering a sustained left bank. Factoring in point 1, id of expected to hear more noise from the turboprops as the crew compensated for the bank - both onboard and on the external video.

3. As the external video begins it already looks like a manual nose up input is in progress, before the aircraft begins its see-saw before the wing drop.

Correct me if i am wrong, but surely in that timeframe, even if the aircraft still could not be saved, i’d of expected a perceived increase in audio tone if the crew went to TOGA (when the stall started) as the aircraft impacted - but there is absolutely nothing?

That seems bizarre.

It makes me wonder if it all started to go a bit pear shaped 10-15 seconds before the ground clip started, thus the low altitude and speed was a symptom rather than the cause? It looked OK until the initial left bank - after which that begun, with no speed, the altitude started to rapidly decrease - which seems to initiate the pull back.

the onboard clip matches that - because despite there being a 2-3 second frame skip due to the nature of streaming, the aircrafts altitude prior to the skip and subsequently after, is dramatically different.

CVR / FDR will be telling.

[nojwod]

Two scenarios that fit the external footage for me:
1. Problem with power on final approach. If the approach was to the wrong runway it has to be considered. Any lack of radio calls can be explained by the crew's knowledge that they would be the only aircraft movement in the area, and therefore devoting 100% concentration to try to fly to the airport. High AoA not evident to pilot flying looking outside the cockpit trying to nurse it along, unknown thrust from engines that may have sounded ok in the cockpit, before the pilot flying finally realised that a stall is imminent. Just before the wing drop you can see the nose coming down fractionally, indicating that the stall was commencing and a push over was begun, unfortunately too late.

2. Same as 1. but pilot flying has lost situational awareness, fixated on an unfamiliar approach and allows the plane to reach high AoA before realising a stall was developing but by then it was too late. Both pilots might have been looking outside for the runway, with engines sounding normal, hand flying and the yoke being gently pulled back too far, loss of airspeed that suddenly resulted in a stall once the bank angle increased beyond a point, and from which there's no way to prevent the plunge into terrain.

But then again, looking at the footage once more, maybe what I thought was a nose down push was just the start of the stall. In which case the plane was flown all the way into the stall, something that could be explained if it was a desperate attempt to keep flying without enough thrust.

[BO0M]

I've spent two decades on the ATR (all variants) and a TRE/TRI for a good period of that. I'm not saying it to beat my chest but to make some comments reagrding this tragic accident.
- The ATR 72 has 2 flap settings (15 & 30). Its not clear from the photos or video what setting they had at the time of the stall but it appears to be flaps 15 which for that stage of the flight it should have been 30.
- ATR has a shaker and a pusher, the pusher goes off well before CLmax and is extremely forcefull. If inhibited or switch off the shaker will still rattle your cage enough to make you carry out Stall Memo items as trained (effectively, Push, Wings Level, Power as required).
- Having tested the machine in real life without the shaker and pusher activate it will drop a wing if not in balance and aerodynamically stalled. If the aircraft was in the turn then its a real possibility. There is no pitch up tendancy, quite the opposite.
- I'm not drawing any conclusions apart from saying the video shows a very nose high ATR that stalls and drops a wing. What lead to the event is unknown and nothing anybody should be speculating.

My thoughts go out to everyone on this flight and the people they left behind. It's truly a tragic event.

[CommanderCYYZ]

Some part of the video is perhaps genuine but it's a serious crash which killed every one so who kept shooting the crash and fire?

The impact of the crash would have sent the phone hurtling. The likely hood of it landing in such a way as to film a fire - which is in no way intense enough - is minute.

[John_K]

My goodness, RIP to all those on board. Condolences to the families.

From some of the video stills posted looks like they are at BASE and too close to the AP?? Even to the untrained investigator or professional pilot, and pure speculation, could this simply be a case and reminder to all of us of TURNING FINAL from BASE and getting the most dangerous turn in aviation wrong?....."I am too high and too close to the airport, so I try to get the nose up to slow us down and force a gentle turn resulting in a stall and a wing drop..."

[ChicoG]

"Local media report that the aircraft was initially preparing for an approach to runway 30, but the pilot later requested an approach to runway 12.
According to the published Standard Instrument Arrival procedure, an aircraft has to intercept the Initial Approach Fix (IAF), the POK VOR located at the old airport, at a heading of 087° and then turn right for runway 12. Distance from the IAF to the runway threshold is 2,4 km (1.3 nm).
The Pokhara International Airport was opened on January 1, 2023 and is located to the east-southeast of the old Pokhara Airport. All previous flights of YT691 at the new Pokhara International Airport landed on runway 30.
At least one other ATR 72 from Kathmandu made an approach to land on runway 12 (flight YT677 on January 12), which flew to the north of the airport before turning left on base and final for runway 12 in the vicinity of POK VOR."

(Source: ASN)

[tartare]

Riiight.
So someone went to all the trouble of finding a video that matched the plane, landmarks etc - and then - I don't know - rendered the fire in Adobe after effects?
Occam's Razor - I suspect the simplest explanation is the correct one here - i.e the video is genuine.

[Farrell]

I remember a low power setting and a late, panicky flap extension almost resulting in a stall one day.

[India Four Two]

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1266/picture2_copy_8fa307211830d63ee20d591526d678f5a3531f3f.jpg

[Load Toad]

Some part of the video is perhaps genuine but it's a serious crash which killed every one so who kept shooting the crash and fire?
- If someone is streaming from a smartphone unless they switch it off it'll run until something stops it.

[smiling monkey]

Pilot Lining for the wrong airport is outrageous . This was the plane's 3rd flight on the route in 3 hours .

Pilot is very experienced . He was instructor as well . He was looking for early retirement at 60 years . Limit is 65 .

Co-Pilot is widow of a pilot who died 15 years ago . She pursued aviation to move on her husband's step . . She had about 100 hours . It was her literal last flight as a copilot to cross the 100 hour mark.

Do you mean the FO is being checked to line and this was her line check?

[poppiholla]

Disclaimer : Now Confirmed from various sources of being Real Live Stream From inside


Is this for Real , the footage from Inside . 30 seconds in .The Location seem correct , it shows the Stadium . . No panic in the aircraft before the sudden roll as seen in other video . Timing of this .



maybe you should give a clear warning that it's absolutely horrific footage. I wish I'd never seen it.

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Do you mean the FO is being checked to line and this was her line check?

Hmm ,I don't know if that is the procedure . As per news report she would cross 100 hours as FO after the said flight . and thus qualify to become a captain .

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/nepal-plane-crash-co-pilot-anju-slated-to-become-pilot-2321869-2023-01-15

Could she be the pilot flying if it was a test ?

[SMYDSTS]

Definitely a stall loss of control event - many possibilities that the investigators will look at. Weight and balance might be interesting - doubt they would be much below maximum landing weight with a full load of pax and no doubt lots of cargo/climbing equipment etc…
To me it looks like they had quite a groundspeed going on before the left turn. Maybe some strong low level valley winds leading to a windshear event coupled with high density altitude. Aerodynamics and engines much less able under such conditions. Or a nasty little inversion - quite a noticeable line of smog that might offer a clue to this sneaky little windshear clue. So perhaps not as much margin for the crew to play with as some may think.

[givemewings]

maybe you should give a clear warning that it's absolutely horrific footage. I wish I'd never seen it.

I really hope the media have some respect and stop broadcasting it at the moment of upset and don't show the aftermath (similar to the coverage of the recent helicopter mid-air in Australia)

No one needs to see that except the investigators, and definitely not the familiefamicept by pre arrangement.

Hopefully something helpful can be gleaned from the video that poor man made. I think this may be the first of its kind including the post event. May he RIP

[vilas]

- If someone is streaming from a smartphone unless they switch it off it'll run until something stops it.
But who will point it out through the window. The person holding the phone surely will take some support and not keep holding it unless it got stuck in the window.

[parkfell]

Naive question, is the Captain UOE check ride something that could cause unusual levels of anxiety? say like doing your driving test?

Also is it correct to say that the female pilot would have been in the left seat whilst the Check Airman would have been in the right seat acting out the role of first officer (even though he was PIC)?

There's a tragic and unnerving similarity in the final moments of this flight and the flight the female pilot's husband died in on 21 June 2006 mentioned in the article posted by canyonblue737

If this was a line check on the FO, they remain in the RHS. There is no question of them changing seats when line flying. Normally any line check is carried out by a training captain observing from the jump seat. Normally two legs are required with the crew acting both as PF & PM on separate legs. There is a suggestion at post 1509 that this was the third visit that day?
There is no doubt that cockpit gradient will form part of the investigation, as will the FDR/CVR.
No question is stupid if it improves your understanding. What does irritate professional pilots on PPRuNe, especially when accidents are discussed, are instant experts pontificating. The instrument procedure plates will undoubtedly clear up the matter of whether the ‘wrong’ airport was chosen. From what has been said, a circling approach was carried out overflying the original airport.

[DaveReidUK]

It was a CL415 and it was in Italy.

You're both right.

It was a CL-215-6B11, marketed as the CL-415 to differentiate it from the original, piston-engined variant.

[WingMen]

I've an analysis done but can't post it as I'm a new user.

I was also on that very plane 18 days ago on a 1 hour Everest Scenic Flight.

There's 20+ seconds missing form that poor souls video inside the cabin between the temple and the stadium.

Looks like they were aiming for the new runway but flew over the old on the approach.

[ATC Watcher]

According to BBC both FDR and CVR been recovered. so we are likely to learn what hapenned in in a few weeks/months. , and according the same report all 72 occupansts on board are likely dead.
A very sad day for Nepal aviation . RIP all...

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1WtJopuLkJMA_KOyvtIHwe9d-ZCm2vTE&usp=sharing

This could be the possible flight path based on the video , Long Straight Lines are the parts not visible in the video but most likely to be turns to arrive at the path . Doesn't look like it is heading for the old airport as they are above it and possibly lining for the new airport .

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1745x832/screenshot_2023_01_16_at_14_07_45_pokhara_atr_google_my_maps _08e64b370c38c16f53efa295270f7d28088ce6c3.jpg

[cncpc]

The impact of the crash would have sent the phone hurtling. The likely hood of it landing in such a way as to film a fire - which is in no way intense enough - is minute.
Well, it only has two sides. Top and bottom. If it lands bottom up, it films whatever is holding it up. If it lands top up, it films the fire.

[hans66]

This could be the possible flight path based on the video , Long Straight Lines are the parts not visible in the video but most likely to be turns to arrive at the path . Doesn't look like it is heading for the old airport as they are above it and possibly lining for the new airport .



How does this compare with any relevant published procedures?

[Wannabe Flyer]

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/co-pilot-on-nepal-plane-had-started-flying-after-husband-died-in-crash-3696075#pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

Was a relatively experienced crew...Very sad

[Less Hair]

How about the recorders? Have they been found?

[guadaMB]

Nothing but pure speculation, so ignore if you aren’t in the mood:
Rumors has it this was an older,very experienced, near pension age captain with a quite fresh co-pilot.
What if the captain had a medical event gradually getting to him on approach? Reverted to experience and aimed for the old airport, realising his mistake but was incapacitated, out of energy and unable to correct the situation or transfer control. Even with the best CRM in the world, that could be a tricky situation with such a cockpit gradient?
IF that happened, CVR will be of great value.

[Less Hair]

Somewhere else, it is claimed FDR and CVR could be retrieved in good state.

[aerolearner]

For those wondering about the published procedures, here is the link to AIP Nepal:
https://e-aip.caanepal.gov.np/welcome/listall/1

The only approach plates I could find for VNPR are in AMDT 2/2023, coming into force with AIRAC cycle 2/23 on Feb 23, 2023. Nothing for RWY 12, apparently.
https://e-aip.caanepal.gov.np/_uploads/_pdf/4c07504ac1696dfdb57a79e3f89f8b36.pdf

The current pages, which came into force on Dec 29, 2022, do not include approach plates yet.
https://e-aip.caanepal.gov.np/_uploads/_pdf/a5364422d09974179f646456de95664b.pdf

[Zoso]

Its not a guess at all.
Everybody can see it, its pretty obvious to any pilot.
The nose lifted.
The plane stalled.
The left wing dropped.
It crashed.

Why it did that, I have no idea, and thats what people should stop guessing about.

Why stop guessing? What’s wrong with speculating about what may have happened?

[FullMetalJackass]

m
2. Same as 1. but pilot flying has lost situational awareness, fixated on an unfamiliar approach and allows the plane to reach high AoA before realising a stall was developing but by then it was too late. Both pilots might have been looking outside for the runway, with engines sounding normal, hand flying and the yoke being gently pulled back too far, loss of airspeed that suddenly resulted in a stall once the bank angle increased beyond a point, and from which there's no way to prevent the plunge into terrain.

But then again, looking at the footage once more, maybe what I thought was a nose down push was just the start of the stall. In which case the plane was flown all the way into the stall, something that could be explained if it was a desperate attempt to keep flying without enough thrust.

I would tend to concur with the second, have seen numerous low hours pilots turning base to final becoming fixated with the location of the runway and inadvertently pulling back as they do so.

In one case I had to literally scream at the pilot to lower the nose and then got him to look out the front at his horizon to realise just how far he‘d pulled back on the yoke, told him to stop staring at the runway, it’s not going anywhere.

One instructor once confirmed that it’s very insidious but common of low hours pilots flying VFR to a new airport to become fixated on the runway and not the aircraft’s attitude.

Having said this, there are probably more holes in the Swiss cheese to line up, maybe perhaps a medical event of the Captain? However if the Captain called for a change from 30 to 12, this would really have to be sods law for it to happen on base before turning final.

RIP all on board

[guadaMB]

I've spent two decades on the ATR (all variants) and a TRE/TRI for a good period of that. I'm not saying it to beat my chest but to make some comments reagrding this tragic accident.
- The ATR 72 has 2 flap settings (15 & 30). Its not clear from the photos or video what setting they had at the time of the stall but it appears to be flaps 15 which for that stage of the flight it should have been 30.
- ATR has a shaker and a pusher, the pusher goes off well before CLmax and is extremely forcefull. If inhibited or switch off the shaker will still rattle your cage enough to make you carry out Stall Memo items as trained (effectively, Push, Wings Level, Power as required).
- Having tested the machine in real life without the shaker and pusher activate it will drop a wing if not in balance and aerodynamically stalled. If the aircraft was in the turn then its a real possibility. There is no pitch up tendancy, quite the opposite.
- I'm not drawing any conclusions apart from saying the video shows a very nose high ATR that stalls and drops a wing. What lead to the event is unknown and nothing anybody should be speculating.

My thoughts go out to everyone on this flight and the people they left behind. It's truly a tragic event.

Last night I spoke with a close friend that is not only fan of ATRs: he got MARRIED on board of one. He's not only doing his job driving these birds but also trainer and chief of pilots in his airline.
He says EXACTLY what you explain and added that ATRs are FANCY TO HANDLE but complicated once the right SPEED is lost (up or down). And that the REACTION to throttle (i.e. in a GA) is harder than in any commercial jet, which make he think they were doing something not that good in the cockpit.
And that he THINKS that all begun with a not appropriate speed + a turn to the port side which made the AC to stall.
My friend says the flight was pleasant an with NO TURBULENCE in a clear and sunny day (after the two videos), and POSSIBLY a mishandling in the bad moment made the fall to come.

[Maninthebar]

I am a little puzzled that we speculators have not included mechanical/system failure in our lists of possible causes

A common description of the evidence we have seen so far indicates insufficient power/energy to complete the maneuvers observed immediately before the accident. Further observations are that there is no aural evidence of engines spooling up.

Possible failures that could account for this include fuel contamination, fuel system failure and throttle/power control system breakage or failure.

Of course these would be rare but then again, accidents are rare!

[DaveReidUK]

This could be the possible flight path based on the video, Long Straight Lines are the parts not visible in the video but most likely to be turns to arrive at the path . Doesn't look like it is heading for the old airport as they are above it and possibly lining for the new airport .

FR24 claim to have granular EHS data covering the last 7 minutes of the flight for which no ADS-B data is available. Depending on how detailed it is, it may well be able to be used to reverse-engineer the approximate horizontal and vertical trajectory, which would confirm (or not) the above theory.

We'll find out in due course whether they intend to publish it.

[Uplinker]

@Maninthebar; it's not a competition, but check post #69.

@Meleagartoo; how else then, do we express our shock, horror and feelings for the victims of (yet another) air crash? What form of words would you prefer?

[Tu.114]

Possible failures that could account for this include fuel contamination

...which has a tendency to strike soon after takeoff, once the non-contaminated fuel has been burned up and the off-specification, water-containing or otherwise unsuitable stuff reaches the engines. Also, it would be usual in many airlines to fuel the aircraft for the round trip to a remote (-r) airport at the home base, so typically, there is a quite substantial top-up involved. If there had been something wrong, it would be noticed much earlier in flight and in all probability would have affected other flights that used the same fuel source as well.

, fuel system failure ...

...hitting both separate fuel systems at once? For the effects of fuel depletion in an airliner, look at Avianca at Cove Neck 1990 or Lamia more recently; this does not kill all engines at the same second.

throttle/power control system breakage or failure.

On both engines at the same time, involving both power levers and both condition levers, i. e. 4 levers and their associated linkage and control units at once?


All those assumptions seem extremely far fetched.

[KAPAC]

I am a little puzzled that we speculators have not included mechanical/system failure in our lists of possible causes

A common description of the evidence we have seen so far indicates insufficient power/energy to complete the maneuvers observed immediately before the accident. Further observations are that there is no aural evidence of engines spooling up.

Possible failures that could account for this include fuel contamination, fuel system failure and throttle/power control system breakage or failure.

Of course these would be rare but then again, accidents are rare!

Power or lack of it , may well prove to be a big part of the issue ?

[172_driver]

I don't see anything unethical with speculating, if it can raise awareness among the pilot group about the inherent risks of some maneuvers.
The one thing that strikes me is the fairly tight circling, whether you call it a circling approach or a visual approach doesn't matter. If the maneuver was flown from the right hand seat the runway could be hard to see. The room for lateral or vertical deviations are small. In an attempt to get visual with the runway speed awareness is lost. Pulling back on the yoke may even be an abscent minded attempt at that.

[ifylofd]

Not sure if any footage has identified one or the other props feathered (?) or engine failure, but could not the end event / disaster be the result of an engine failure event on approach that was not handled IAW operator / manufacturer guidelines? (leading to an aerodynamic stall / CFIT)

There appears to be much speculation, but what we have seen may be the consequences of an event moments before the footage (that is widely available) commences.

[michaelbinary]

Not if they are flying the plane properly like professionals should.
You know, 1 pilot flying, 1 pilot monitoring. !!

To save time, with currently no technical information available, why dont we ALL just make a list of everything everybody and his dog thinks could have happened and then we can have a sweepstake with £100 an entry, and whoever is the closest gets the kudos and we send the pot to the families of the passengers. !!!

[scifi]

Just one question, does the Stick Shaker and Stick Pusher take into account the angle of bank, which increases the stall speed exponentially, or does it still use pitot airspeed as the measurement.
From the original video, I did notice the tail went down ( = nose went up.) about 2 seconds before the plane started to bank.

[nojwod]

Neil Hansford, an aviation consultant from Strategic Aviation Solutions, said the black box was typically the first point of call when seeking information about plane crashes that occurred in remote areas. .....

.................

"I think this one is going to get down to what's called a stall," Mr Hansford said.

"[The pilot had] been coming in too slow.

"As soon as you bank to the left, then obviously you lose all the wind lift and it goes down like a stone.

"Once you get into a stall at low altitude and low speed, there's generally only one consequence."

He said the aircraft would have given the pilot stall warnings, and he believed the crash was due to human error.

"When you're at low speed, you don't start making heavily banked turns," he said.

"I think [the pilot's] level of competence had been reached."

Here's an aviation 'expert' quoted on ABC News in Australia. Since we have no evidence of anything other than the aircraft stalled on approach, I think it says more about the competence of Mr hansford to comment on this incident than the competence of the pilot(s).

[gearlever]

The cabin video is fake.

[WingMen]

I flew in there a few weeks ago on a Yeti ATR 72 - they take a pretty tight turn from the north onto the old runway, but I'd imagine they're pretty used to it given how the old runway is positioned in the valley vs the approach from Kathmandu direction - it's the typical approach into Pokhara from Kathmandu.

I commented to my wife how crazy the approach was landing on that old runway - low, tight turn, and dropped straight down onto the runway in a pretty short time.

Looking at the video from that poor mans phone, it looks to be a very similar route they took in yesterday, just at a slightly higher altitude as they weren't landing on the old runway. By the time they get down to the stadium, they would be about to land within seconds onto the old runway. In the vid they were clearly a few hundred feet up and were likely lining up for their next turn.

There appears to be theory floating around about them approaching the new runway from the wrong side against instruction / guidance from ATC.
The new runway would enable them to fly straight in without any significant turns at all coming straight in from Kathmandu ( unless there was a compelling reason to go around and do a wide 180 to approach from the western side.)
Why they went all the way around for that westerly instead of the simple easterly approach may prove to be important here.

Landing on the old runway they would have been a lot lower but the route itself and the initial tight turn into that line isn't unusual for those guys - the turn after that to the new runway would be relatively new.

I've done up a graphic and the turn into the gorge would have been the exact route to get them to the new runway - they simply appear to have dropped on the turn, but directionally the turn was exactly where they needed to be by the looks of it.

I can't post the graphic as I'm a newbie but above there's a graphic above from Yo You Not You which I did a version of based on the video before I saw that, and mine is pretty much identical to that. I'd say it's 95%+ accurate .

[blorgwinder]

The cabin video is fake.
And for proof you offer up the following factual information.

[RiSq]

The cabin video is fake.

Unless you have evidence of that, why do you come to that conclusion?

The only aspect of the video people are doubting is what happens to the phone post impact.

All other things add up:

- The approach
- The progressive left bank
- The weather conditions match
- The time frame
- The transition from left bank to the incident
- The sound and time of the PAX reaction

So, what you are suggesting is - Someone had free access to those exact chain of events, the exact footage, passenger reactions AND released the video mere hours afterwards?

Versus the counter

- The phone would of went “flying” - It did
- The fire looks too real - Fire does tend to look real when it is.

And your conclusion is that it is fake?

OK then.

The deceased gentleman was filming from the left, rear side of the aircraft. That section of the aircraft clearly hit the side of the gorge ( as can be seen by the large remains of the fuselage still up on the side of the bank). Fire damage can be seen on the side of the fuselage, but remains relatively intact - again, lines up with the immediate post crash fire before most of the airframe went into the gorge. See the latest scene videos from the BBC

This again is consistent with the video. The video then captures some movement, before another drop - when the phone went over the gorge, presumably with a fair chunk of the wreckage.

[michaelbinary]

And the video footage out of the window matches exactly where the plane would have been in the seconds leading up to the stall, wing drop, and crash.

So gearlever are you saying there was another flight on another day in exactly the position at the same height and the same weather conditions and somebody on board just happened to be filming out of the window and then somehow that video got out into the public domain and then somebody saw it, and heard about the crash (and worked out where the plane was and which direction it was going in, which was unknown at the time) and then had the genius thought, you know what I can use that video I saw to make a fake video about the plane crash.

Get a life.

[biplanegear]

Saw a thread on TV this morning. Difficult to find more? Yeti
There were 72 people on the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft operated by Nepal's Yeti Airlines,
Pokhara.
Aircraft on approach stalled followed by incipient spin into the ground.
Black box now found.
Await results should be interesting.

[Maninthebar]

Uplinker - thanks, missed that one :-)

Tu.114 - as I say, all causes are unlikely but remain possible until ruled out. - fuel contamination, see Cathay Pacific 780 into Hong Kong April 2010 - autothrottle failure or mismanagement (or a combination of both) not unheard of by any means. Fuel starvation yes, I give you that by itself seems unlikely.

[Del Prado]

Uplinker - thanks, missed that one :-)

Tu.114 - as I say, all causes are unlikely but remain possible until ruled out. - fuel contamination, see Cathay Pacific 780 into Hong Kong April 2010 - autothrottle failure or mismanagement (or a combination of both) not unheard of by any means. Fuel starvation yes, I give you that by itself seems unlikely.


“The ATR does not have auto throttle. In the 72 and 42-500 it has a notch in which you place the power levers - in this position the TQ is controlled by the PWR management selector.”

[Maninthebar]

Thank you

[Loose rivets]

What is not being mentioned is that the 72 was being flown much as one might fly the 42. In terms of handling, they are chalk and cheese.

I'd have had no problems with that horizontal profile in the 42, but with this aircraft, with the load we see, I'd have insisted on a good length stabilized approach.
With plenty of height and the nose comfortably pitched down a tad, this profile was doable, despite being not acceptable in principle. However, what I see is quite the opposite - a totally unacceptable flight profile for a 72 at that guessed weight. Now tankering fuel is being mooted.

Going back to my former post and the puff of grey smoke behind the port engine. Is there any reason to believe the fuel may have been contaminated?

[NJF_ENMS]

The cabin video is fake.


People on the video confirmed on that flight by local police and friends.
Source,The Guardian

[hoistop]

aviationdreamer
If you are in a left turn, your right wing has larger airspeed for the same AOA, so how come that outer wing would stall first? In all stalls I did in a turn (as instructor, etc.), the turn continued to a stall/spin into same direction as original turn, with one exemption: some airplanes have very large ailerons, and bringing wing AOA in a shallow turn to critical angle, THEN increasing bank with ailerons will bring OUTER wingtip to a stall, as down deflected aileron increases AOA beyond critical and airplane in a left bank will suddenly turn into right bank and will flip on its back if pilot insists by applying opposite aileron. (I can demonstrate that beautifully on a FOX aerobatic twin seater) But this phenomena I observed only on aerobatic airplanes with large ailerons and no wing twist.

[hoistop]

Just one question, does the Stick Shaker and Stick Pusher take into account the angle of bank, which increases the stall speed exponentially, or does it still use pitot airspeed as the measurement.
From the original video, I did notice the tail went down ( = nose went up.) about 2 seconds before the plane started to bank.

All Stick shakers use Angle of Attack sensor as primary input (plus airplane configuration etc)
When I do aerobatic training, I announce this on first class: There is no such thing as Stall speed. There is only Critical Angle of Attack. Stall speed is only a derivate from critical AOA under certain conditions. Then I demonstrate stall/spin at speeds way above published "Stall speed". - and the plane spins like a propeller!

[aox]

Why would they change runway, if this is true?

I wondered if this implies a crosswind of significant strength, and swapping from say 120 degrees to 60 degrees angle

Can't find metar, but an ordinary weather website (wunderground) with archive has 6 mph SSE at 9 am, 2 mph S at midday

If true, that's barely enough to bother about the difference of direction.

Would it be about taxying distance, or practising another runway after they'd done the other a couple of times?

Or can the weather I've found so far be inaccurate, and it's actually 30 or more knots, and turbulent gusts from the mountains 2 miles upwind?

[Lake1952]

Which airport were they trying for? The one with runway 04-22 or the one with 12-30?

[Brewster Buffalo]

I ........
There appears to be theory floating around about them approaching the new runway from the wrong side against instruction / guidance from ATC.
......................... .

BBC reporting that "The pilot asked for a change from the assigned runway 3 to runway 1, which was granted by the airport, Mr Joshi said."

[aox]

Which airport were they trying for? The one with runway 04-22 or the one with 12-30?

Given the rough track that some folks have deduced from landmarks in the video, and the height, it seems likely that this was similar to earlier reported flight(s?) with circuit to the north of the new airport, base leg coincidentally approximately on a line of the old runway, 90 degree left turn to line up on 12 (new)

[aviationdreamer]

Hey hiostop,

After reviewing my notes, it looks you are right. That is only in the condition if the airplane is in a descending turn, however if the airplane is turning and stalling while level or climbing the nose will drop outside the turn due to the higher AOA/slower speed of the outer upper going wing.

[megan]

Originally Posted by gearlever View Post (https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/650808-nepal-plane-crash.html#post11367370)
The cabin video is fake.The cabin video was being live streamed to Facebook, must be a first.

[172_driver]

Climbing turn, the outer wing stalls first. Descending turn, the inner wing stalls first. In theory, and I have sucessfully demonstrated that many times. This was a descending turn.
Then in reality I guess many things could happen and disprove theory.

[Dynamite1]

ATC WATCHER My original response seems to have been removed by the moderator for whatever reason..but I maintain that your remarks are discriminatory and unfounded.

[ATC Watcher]

ATC WATCHER My original response seems to have been removed by the moderator for whatever reason..but I maintain that your remarks are discriminatory and unfounded.Dear Mt Dynamite,

If I offended you I am sorry . My remarks was not against you or India as a country but towards the Press there, I could say the same when “unconfirmed info” would come from The Sun or the Daily Mail in the UK . This is a professional forum , not Facebook .

And there is indeed a lot of garbage coming from some Indian media , and to prove my point just look at what a link posted here eralier , and after my remark, referring to an INDIA TODAY article which said : The co-pilot aboard the fateful Yeti Airlines - ATR-72, carrying 72 people, which crashed in Nepal's Pokhara, … was seconds away from achieving her goal of becoming a captain.

When I read this, I disregard the rest of the article.

[barrymung]

I don't see anything unethical with speculating, if it can raise awareness among the pilot group about the inherent risks of some maneuvers..


Indeed. By trying to work out what went wrong is at the least a good exercise, especially if it saves one pilot making an error.


I think that it will have been a combination of factors. Many are saying it's "impossible" for the pilot to have been heading towards the wrong airport but at this stage nothing should be ruled out. How many times have you moved house or changed job but still driven to the old place? Everyone does it especially if they have been going to the old place for years.


The seniority of one officer and the relative lack of seniority/experience of the other could also have played a major part of this. Either one of them could have had brain fade, thought they were heading to the previous airport.


What if one were heading for the old airport but the other set speed/flaps etc for landing at the new one, followed by a swift turn to the correct runway?


What I'm saying is that there are loads of things that can't be ruled out and everyone can learn by discussing the possibilities in an open forum.

[guadaMB]

The cabin video is fake.

Simon Hradecky posted BOTH videos (cabin and puffing engine) are fake.

[sycamore]

Possibility of an asymmetric flap failure,as selection of full flap would be at about that point turning final..?

[MPN11]

BBC reporting that "The pilot asked for a change from the assigned runway 3 to runway 1, which was granted by the airport, Mr Joshi said."
That bit of BBC reporting had me on Google Earth to try and work out what he meant. Gibberish being reported by the BBC, I regret.

[lederhosen]

An earlier post suggested a training captain was flying with a pilot under training with around 100 hours. The weather seems to have been good. Maybe he suggested they take the opportunity to fly a circling approach for training purposes, which then went wrong. My experience is mainly on jets so I have no insider knowledge on turboprops. But I have heard people say they can be hard to master and a circling approach is a rarity in an airliner. I was fascinated in any case by the post that suggested the stick pusher in the ATR was not active below 500 feet. Just speculation on my part, which I am sure will be overtaken by the facts.

[Livesinafield]

The cabin video is confirmed fake on many other outlets, it clearly looks doctored, the initial part is supposedly from another flight and is all legit.

In the video you don't see the pitch up, you don't see the violent roll to the left, the screams are not synced to anyone's reactions, the moment you hear the screams and then fire like nearly less than a second later...oh and the phone just laying there in flames , come on... It's clearly fake

Possibility of an asymmetric flap failure,as selection of full flap would be at about that point turning final..?

AT72 has feature to stop flap movement of asymmetric conditions is detected

[mobov98423]

they are not fake

the name of the one who was shooting came out today by friends and family who are confirming the live facebook video.

cannot post the link, just go to bbc news and search the article: "Indian passenger filmed Nepal plane's last moments'"

simon is very confused
in his site he says that the videos are fake because they show fire whilst no fire took place in the crash
yet his photos show post crash fire

[punkalouver]

Quite a bizarre situation where the co-pilot(who apparently had a fair amount of experience and may have been with a training captain) learned to fly after her husband died in a crash at the controls of a plane in the same airline in 2006. The speculation for the ATR crash was that there was a decision to change runways and a stall involved while maneuvering.

Now check out the circumstances for her husband's crash.

ASN Aircraft accident de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 9N-AEQ Jumla Airport (JUM) (aviation-safety.net) (https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20060621-0)

A stall while maneuvering after a decision to land on a different runway.

[Seat4A]

they are not fake

the name of the one who was shooting came out today by friends and family who are confirming the live facebook video.

cannot post the link, just go to bbc news and search the article: "Indian passenger filmed Nepal plane's last moments'"

simon is very confused
in his site he says that the videos are fake because they show fire whilst no fire took place in the crash
yet his photos show post crash fire


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64287331

[RiSq]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64287331

Despite me confirming since the video was released that the passenger was on the manifest according to contacts in Nepal, this debate has still raged on.

and you can see the plane pitch up, but in the cabin, whats your reference point? From the video you can see it if you look closely enough, but a camera will never full show it.

I am assuming that Simon was expecting a reaction from passengers at the nose up. This is Nepal. People are accustomed to rough and ready rides. Another comment a few posts back even mentioned his shock at the experience. Knowing many Nepalese people, this is common with steep descent, approaches and turbulence in the region. Only once the wing tipped and the aircraft had stalled, would they have thought anything was different.

back to Occams Razor. Rather than look for what isn’t there, you look for what is.

both the BBC and the Guardian have confirmed it. And without being too graphic, unfiltered Nepalese videos from the scene had already too.

[golson41]

Based on helicopter video of the scene, looks like below is where the crash site is.

GPS Coordinates = 28.197723 83.985007
(Right near the Pokhara Christian Graveyard)

Seems pretty convincing that they were in line to land at the wrong airport. The new airport opened 2 weeks ago. ATC said the plane was landing from the wrong direction. And the path based on the passenger phone video has them in line with old runway. Probably LATE in their landing sequence they realized this, and decided to redirect to the new airport. But they were too low, and speed too slow, and they were probably too busy/distracted with the change on the plan, and the VERY hard left turn they needed to make. All added up to the stall and crash.

Scary that the almost exact same thing killed the co-pilot's husband years earlier. I'm sure it's likely Anju the co-pilot was at the controls.

Are there any regulations in the US if you are need to change runways or are missing your landing path, when you need to abort and go around?

[DaveReidUK]

That bit of BBC reporting had me on Google Earth to try and work out what he meant. Gibberish being reported by the BBC, I regret.

I had assumed that the BBC's "change from the assigned runway 3 to runway 1" actually meant the change from 30 to 12, which several sources have backed up.

[InnerLoop]

The cabin video is confirmed fake on many other outlets, it clearly looks doctored, the initial part is supposedly from another flight and is all legit.

In the video you don't see the pitch up, you don't see the violent roll to the left, the screams are not synced to anyone's reactions, the moment you hear the screams and then fire like nearly less than a second later...oh and the phone just laying there in flames , come on... It's clearly fake



How would you expect to see the pitch up or the roll while the camera is aimed inside the cabin? What are you expecting to see the phone do in the flames, besides laying?

[DaveReidUK]

I am assuming that Simon was expecting a reaction from passengers at the nose up. This is Nepal. People are accustomed to rough and ready rides. Another comment a few posts back even mentioned his shock at the experience. Knowing many Nepalese people, this is common with steep descent, approaches and turbulence in the region. Only once the wing tipped and the aircraft had stalled, would they have thought anything was different.

I'm struggling to work out from Simon's conclusion about the videos whether he actually thinks they are fake or genuine:

"Due to frequent mention of these videos and claims, they are authentic, the comments are now closed."

Make of that what you will.

[MissChief]

Poor piloting in all probability. The FDR and CVR should answer the questions and theories here. Best now to wait, but not to forget. After all, Pokhara is not Buffalo. It is an insignificant Nepalese city in most Westerners' eyes.

[RiSq]

I'm struggling to work out from Simon's conclusion about the videos whether he actually thinks they are fake or genuine:



Make of that what you will.

That would mean he has removed the rest - as it also stated that both were fake (there was apparently a fake video showing the aircraft bank right with an engine fire) - which obviously was fake.

As someone above said, I don’t get the logic of the fact he stated that because you couldn’t see the pitch up, from a camera inside the plane with no reference points, that it was fake.


Hopefully now the BBC and Guardian have confirmed with the families that it was real, This whole “Real not real” is put to bed.


The most scary thing for me is that people are so accustomed to fakes now and such is the levels of complexity to them, that people literally cannot tell what is real and what isn’t - that is alarming.

[Load Toad]

But who will point it out through the window. The person holding the phone surely will take some support and not keep holding it unless it got stuck in the window.

- It's a phone - it can face its camera(s) 360o - if dropped and not switched off it will video whatever it's pointing at until it is stopped for some reason. The video is real and it isn't hard to understand why it captured the images it did before the crash, during the crash and immediately afterwards.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64287331

[remi]

After fiddling around with Google Earth a bit, yes they appear to have been right over the end of RWY 22, or just E of it. The view out the window can be reproduced exactly on Google Earth from approximately that position. But is that the correct approach to 12 anyway?

[WingMen]

Based on helicopter video of the scene, looks like below is where the crash site is.

GPS Coordinates = 28.197723 83.985007
(Right near the Pokhara Christian Graveyard)

Seems pretty convincing that they were in line to land at the wrong airport.

They were too high over turning at Bhadrakali Temple to be planning on landing on the old runway.
When they pass by the Stadium, they should be almost wheels down to be landing on the old runway - but they are a few hundred feet up.
Almost certainly they were doing a circuit and this was the final turn to align with the new runway from the East side.
That final turn lines up with the GPS coordinates of that graveyard.

I suspect that final turn began somewhere around here : 28.202429, 83.982925

[aerolearner]

That would mean he has removed the rest - as it also stated that both were fake (there was apparently a fake video showing the aircraft bank right with an engine fire) - which obviously was fake.
This one?
https://youtu.be/uDJ4Ukl5H3Y
Not fake, just out of context.

[Tom Bangla]

Poor piloting in all probability. The FDR and CVR should answer the questions and theories here. Best now to wait, but not to forget. After all, Pokhara is not Buffalo. It is an insignificant Nepalese city in most Westerners' eyes.
One wonders how many Nepali eyes would see Buffalo as a significant city.

[rmac2]

Given the rough track that some folks have deduced from landmarks in the video, and the height, it seems likely that this was similar to earlier reported flight(s?) with circuit to the north of the new airport, base leg coincidentally approximately on a line of the old runway, 90 degree left turn to line up on 12 (new)

First sensible comment I have seen on the wrong airport/runway speculation. Base to final turn, possibly went through the centreline and then tried to force the aircraft around too quickly. Bottom rudder, touch of opposite aileron and a hard pitch to keep the nose up, classic skidding turn with high AoA, predictable results. Also looks like first stage flap only, reinforcing the assumption of a base to final turn.

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Based on helicopter video of the scene, looks like below is where the crash site is.

GPS Coordinates = 28.197723 83.985007
(Right near the Pokhara Christian Graveyard)

Seems pretty convincing that they were in line to land at the wrong airport. The new airport opened 2 weeks ago. ATC said the plane was landing from the wrong direction. And the path based on the passenger phone video has them in line with old runway. Probably LATE in their landing sequence they realized this, and decided to redirect to the new airport. But they were too low, and speed too slow, and they were probably too busy/distracted with the change on the plan, and the VERY hard left turn they needed to make. All added up to the stall and crash.

Scary that the almost exact same thing killed the co-pilot's husband years earlier. I'm sure it's likely Anju the co-pilot was at the controls.

Are there any regulations in the US if you are need to change runways or are missing your landing path, when you need to abort and go around?

Please check my post above with map , the plane path approximated from the video , this does not look like going for the old runway at all , they look like lining up for the changed runway , with some heavy turns involved .

[remi]

First sensible comment I have seen on the wrong airport/runway speculation. Base to final turn, possibly went through the centreline and then tried to force the aircraft around too quickly. Bottom rudder, touch of opposite aileron and a hard pitch to keep the nose up, classic skidding turn with high AoA, predictable results. Also looks like first stage flap only, reinforcing the assumption of a base to final turn.
In the two stills shown in comment #71 it looks to me as if there were two different flap settings with the later one greater, which is consistent with something resembling a normal approach.

Dropping a wing is consistent with a stall but why? Did the turn cause the stall? Seems unlikely if it was business as usual in the cabin up to the last second of losing control because how do you get into an accelerated stall with so little fuss among passengers? There would be some alarm I would think even if this approach is the mega version of flying into McCarran.

Did a wing stall first for some reason (asymmetric thrust, control surfaces) and that cause the turn?

Or was it not a stall and instead CFIT or inadvertent loss of control or cockpit chaos resulting in flying a perfectly airworthy craft into the ground? US Bangla 211?

I'm leaning toward an airworthy plane was just flown into the ground but who knows and I don't. We'll find out though.

[michaelbinary]

If that video is real. then
1s you can see plane passing Pokhara football stadium
2s far field is the cricket ground with the centre pitch covered, the near field is the anapurna skate park
3-7s you can see the left wing tip drop to enter a left turn.
7+s the road from bottom to top of the screen with the kink in it, puts the plane about 300ft altitude over and approx halfway down the old airfield runway.
this is approx 2K from the threshold of runway 12 of the new airport and requires an immediate steep 90 degree left turn, which the plane didnt make.

They werent landing at the wrong airfield, they were already over it at about 300 feet heading towards the new airfield

I already said this about 5 pages ago.

[Landseer]

First sensible comment I have seen on the wrong airport/runway speculation. Base to final turn, possibly went through the centreline and then tried to force the aircraft around too quickly. Bottom rudder, touch of opposite aileron and a hard pitch to keep the nose up, classic skidding turn with high AoA, predictable results. Also looks like first stage flap only, reinforcing the assumption of a base to final turn.
So in this situation was a 270 right out of the question - too low/terrain/traffic?

[ATC Watcher]

Amazing last few pages to read, it used to be here instant investigations using FR24, now it is instant investigation by facebook videos. Whether the video is real of fake, it does not matter much as it will not reveal what happened ,only the FDR and CVR may. And as they look in good condition, hopefully they can be read, not in Nepal as it does not have the facilities, most probably by the BEA or NTSB which will ensure a good analysis.
When I read here: poor piloting, wrong airport, wrong runway, etc..all speculations that are not supported by any evidence, at all, and taken and used as facts by the next uniformed poster it starts to look like a witch hunt.
A bit of respect for the Pilots' families please.

[barrymung]

Not sure if any footage has identified one or the other props feathered (?) or engine failure, but could not the end event / disaster be the result of an engine failure event on approach that was not handled IAW operator / manufacturer guidelines? (leading to an aerodynamic stall / CFIT)

There appears to be much speculation, but what we have seen may be the consequences of an event moments before the footage (that is widely available) commences.

It *could*. We simply don't know what occurred before the footage commenced. There's a possibility there was a noise or other anomaly that prompted the passenger to start recording?

[barrymung]

They werent landing at the wrong airfield, they were already over it at about 300 feet heading towards the new airfield

I already said this about 5 pages ago.

But, before that they were heading basically straight towards it. It's possible that one or other has brain fade and configured the plane for landing at the old airport while the other was preparing to turn and land at the new airport. It's easily done - how many times have you moved house and ended up driving to the old one, maybe weeks later?

By the time such an error was realised it might be too late to correct it. The difference in seniority may also have led to a delay. Only a theory, but in the absence of a concrete cause it cant be discounted and it doesn't appear to be mech failure.

[barrymung]

When I read here : poor piloting , wrong airport, wrong runway , etc..all speculations that are not supported by any evidence, at all and taken and used as facts by the next uniformed poster it sarts to look like a witch hunt.
A bit of respect for the Pilots families please,

Evidence thus far is suggesting it wasn't a mechanical issue. We know it wasn't terrorism. It is therefore most likely an operational issue.

[michaelbinary]

You have no evidence to suggest it wasnt a mechanical issue at all. NONE, and there is no evidence yet to suggest it was either.

They were heading to the old airfield because it just happens to be under the left hand circuit required to line up with 12 of the new airport. (assuming a left hand circuit)
Thats why they were at 300-400 feet overhead the old runway starting to make a left turn to line up with 12. Trouble is they were only 1.5 - 2K from the 12 threshold so very close in, and trying to make a tight 90 degree turn at reasonably low speed and as we all saw it didnt end well.

[MEA_mann]

I am not a Pilot, Professional or Amateur; my only experience was in learning to fly a Glider, very many years ago. My Brother-in-Law is a very experienced (perhaps somewhat arrogant) Airline Pilot of many years experience, we talk a lot about about his job and experiences.

I have spent my entire working life in Change Management, Acceptance Testing and Training. I regularly carry out and learn a lot from Scenario Analysis.

I unhesitatingly applaud those who “speculate” on the causes of accidents; sometimes assuming the obvious or waiting for the conclusions of an investigation waste a valuable “learning opportunity”.

Keep it up people, even an outsider like me can learn from Human Factors and analysis :ok:

[barrymung]

They were too high over turning at Bhadrakali Temple to be planning on landing on the old runway.
When they pass by the Stadium, they should be almost wheels down to be landing on the old runway - but they are a few hundred feet up.
Almost certainly they were doing a circuit and this was the final turn to align with the new runway from the East side.
That final turn lines up with the GPS coordinates of that graveyard.


The wheels were down, suggesting they were configured to land.

[barrymung]

You have no evidence to suggest it wasnt a mechanical issue at all. NONE, and there is no evidence yet to suggest it was either.

They were heading to the old airfield because it just happens to be under the left hand circuit required to line up with 21 of the new airport. (assuming a left hand circuit)
Thats why they were at 300-400 feet overhead the old runway starting to make a left turn to line up with 21. Trouble is they were only 1.5 - 2K from the 21 threshold so very close in, and trying to make a tight 90 degree turn at reasonably low speed and as we all saw it didnt end well.

Occams razor. It is possible there was some sort of mechanical anomaly, but it's not apparent in either of the videos and no sense of emergency on board.

The fact the wheels were down however, suggests they were planning to land. If the wheels were configured for a landing then it's likely the rest of the plane was too. If they were configured for a landing we have to ask ourselves where - the nearest airport is the old one and it seems they were lined up with it. If they thought they were landing at the new airport would they have the wheels down this early?

We also need to ask why they made such a sharp turn at a relatively slow speed. Again, it's possible it was a panic type reaction that led to this.

[Del Prado]

The fact the wheels were down however, suggests they were planning to land. If the wheels were configured for a landing then it's likely the rest of the plane was too. If they were configured for a landing we have to ask ourselves where - the nearest airport is the old one and it seems they were lined up with it. If they thought they were landing at the new airport would they have the wheels down this early?


The new runway is less than 2 kilometres from the old runway, when do you suggest they should put the wheels down?

[chazontour]

The last minute decision to swap to Runway 12 seems incongruous with the flight history of the aircraft (9N-ANC) between Kathmandu and the new airport at Pokhara. All previous flights appear to take the straight in approach to Runway 30 (as shown on Flightradar 24).

If the decision to use Runway 12 was for a training exercise why would the crew have notified ATC at the last minute when its only a 25 minute flight. Surely it would have been included in the flight plan.

Flightradar24 also shows that the aircraft had been running around an hour behind schedule that morning on its previous sectors. Assuming it was still behind schedule for YT691 then surely the quickest approach would have been straight in via Runway 30?

The *potential* influence of the old airport and familiar patterns of behaviour related to it may have been subtle, nuanced and partial.

[WingMen]

The wheels were down, suggesting they were configured to land.
I meant wheels down on the tarmac, not wheels down to prep.
They were hundreds of feet too high to have be landing on the old runway
They were 2.5km from touchdown on the new runway.

[michaelbinary]

The wheels were down because they were on approach to land on 12, duh!.
With any sort of issue that isnt apparent to the passengers, then they would be the last to know.

They were 300-400 feet above the old runway, they were never landing on it, not even close, flying over it is part of a left hand circuit for 21.

[Uplinker]

........We also need to ask why they made such a sharp turn at a relatively slow speed........

Is it possible that the very experienced TRE was showing the very inexperienced F/O how to do a circling type approach to this airfield ?
Then - I don't know - maybe he either positioned it much too tight, and/or kept his eyes outside the cockpit too much and didn't keep an eye on the power setting or the airspeed ? If so, the F/O probably would have been looking out too, to learn the 'picture', so neither pair of eyes was inside on the instruments.

[gearlever]

Is it possible that the very experienced TRE was showing the very inexperienced F/O how to do a circling type approach to this airfield ?
Then - I don't know - maybe he either positioned it much too tight, and/or kept his eyes outside the cockpit too much and didn't keep an eye on the power setting or the airspeed ? If so, the F/O probably would have been looking out too, to learn the 'picture', so neither pair of eyes was inside on the instruments.

Anju Khatiwada had flown close to 6,400 hours and was about to become a CPT.

[rmac2]

So in this situation was a 270 right out of the question - too low/terrain/traffic?

Looking at the terrain they had enough room to drift through the centreline and correct normally. But in a similar situation many pilots will still try to "rescue" the turn by squeezing it a bit on the bottom rudder. If a little bit slow and a little bit low, a bit of loading of the wings follows and ....

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Anju Khatiwada had flown close to 6,400 hours and was about to become a CPT.

FAA . No way a rookie .
Certificate: AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT
Date of Issue: 10/20/2014

Ratings:
AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT
AIRPLANE MULTIENGINE LAND
PRIVATE PRIVILEGES
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND

All sorts of Information on Anju and the fateful flight .
A. She was Co-pilot on the Flight . But had recently became a captain .
B. She was about to be a Captain . Hence this was a Check flight with an experienced Instructor Pilot .
C . She was the pilot flyig . She requested the runway change .

[golson41]

The last minute decision to swap to Runway 12 seems incongruous with the flight history of the aircraft (9N-ANC) between Kathmandu and the new airport at Pokhara. All previous flights appear to take the straight in approach to Runway 30 (as shown on Flightradar 24).

If the decision to use Runway 12 was for a training exercise why would the crew have notified ATC at the last minute when its only a 25 minute flight. Surely it would have been included in the flight plan.

Flightradar24 also shows that the aircraft had been running around an hour behind schedule that morning on its previous sectors. Assuming it was still behind schedule for YT691 then surely the quickest approach would have been straight in via Runway 30?

The *potential* influence of the old airport and familiar patterns of behaviour related to it may have been subtle, nuanced and partial.

This is VERY interesting. Looks like every YT flight into Pokhara for previous 5 days, was straight into runway 30 on the new airport. The YT flight just 3 hours earlier in the day, again was straight into runway 30. ATC cleared them to land on runway 30, but plane asked for runway 12. So pretty darn clear this was unplanned at least from ATC perspective. Hard to argue with that.

Everyone posting that no way they were trying to land at old airport, they were 100s of feet in the air when they passed the stadium, they were too high. Well ya of course at THAT point they were not landing at the old airport. It's pretty clear they are in the air and yes not landing at the old airport at that point. But back up in the flight 3-4 minutes. All evidence we have so far shows an abnormal plan to land on runway 12. When did they make that decision? Was it late in the flight? To me it seems like they were not prepared for runway 12 landing, they were clearly not on a good path to make runway 12, and probably distracted at how they were going to make it, were too low and too slow, and stalled. But contributing factor based on all the current evidence, is that they made a change to runway 12, and probably late in the flight. If it was 5-10 minutes earlier they would have just landed at runway 30.

Anyone know the wind direction that day? Were they landing with the wind behind them?

[Zombywoof]

Anju Khatiwada had flown close to 6,400 hours and was about to become a CPT.SLF question: is it normal to accumulate 6400 hours before achieving a command?

[macdo]

No way to answer that without knowing the pilots history. 6400 hrs where I am would be average. But, it depends on multiple factors and nothing can be read into to the number.

[Zombywoof]

Thanks macdo, I was thinking about military pilots, who take eons to reach 6400 hours.

EDIT: not reading anything into the number, it just seemed like a lot of hours to me.

[Gizm0]

MODS:
Why has this thread been removed from the main page??? Indeed there is now no longer any link to it from there.
It would seem to me that this thread - all about an extremely serious, fatal accident - should be easily visible to all in the aviation community including ALL current pilots. Yes at first sight this appears to be a stall from a mis-handled visual / circling approach - and almost certainly it was - but we don't yet know why. So why do you MODS think that this discussion should not be at the forefront of pilot thinking? Yes indeed there is an awful lot of uninformed rubbish being spouted here (that is the nature of PPRuNe) but the underlying fact is that there is potentially an awful lot to be learnt from this disaster. Just because it was in Nepal, with it's worrying incident rate, does not mean it is irrelevant. I would submit that this could have happened anywhere - including Western Europe & the USA. Stalling on an approach is not unheard of in our part of the world and the fact that the F/O is now known to be experienced, with some 6400 hrs, means that this was overall an extremely experienced crew. Certainly, hours wise, they had more than enough experience (& presumably local knowledge) to have completed this flight safely. WHY did they not is the question - and, as such, this should be afforded more visibility than it is now getting. MODS: Please reconsider this decision and move it back to the mainstream discussion - that way lessons from this horrific accident are more likely to be learned by those who fly day in & day out such NPAs in older, less well equipped aircraft - often also in difficult circumstances.

Very pleased to see that the link to this has now been restored on the front page - thank you Mods.

[Zombywoof]

A. She was Co-pilot on the Flight . But had recently became a captain
B. She was about to be a Captain . Hence this was a Check flight with an experienced Instructor Pilot .
C . She was the pilot flyig . She requested the runway change .Nice job of contradicting yourself within one paragraph.

[Zombywoof]

Stalling on an approach is not unheard of in our part of the worldI would submit that stalling on approach is unheard of in the airline transport world. There have been many accidents of this nature in GA, but in airline ops?

Oh, someone will always be able to pull up an outlying incident, but airliners don't stall on approach. Millions of movements per year...

[JanetFlight]

... but airliners don't stall on approach. Millions of movements per year...

​​​​​Maybe giv it a try >>>

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_140

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_676

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Nice job of contradicting yourself within one paragraph.,

Meant to be contradictory . hence A . B . C

[MikeSnow]

Nice job of contradicting yourself within one paragraph.

That was their point. That there is a lot of contradicting information about that pilot.

[Zombywoof]

​​​​​Maybe giv it a tryDid you read what I said? Stall on approach incidents are EXTREMELY rare in the airliner world. I didn't even bother to read your post, because coming up with an incident that fits the mold (if that's what you have done) just proves what I said.. there's always someone who can pull up something from the annals of the past.

[Zombywoof]

That was their point. That there is a lot of contradicting information about that pilot.I don't see any contradicting information at all.

[sablatnic]

I would submit that stalling on approach is unheard of in the airline transport world. There have been many accidents of this nature in GA, but in airline ops?

Oh, someone will always be able to pull up an outlying incident, but airliners don't stall on approach. Millions of movements per year...

Stalling on approach is certainly not unheard off, just look for Asiana flight 214 in 2013.

[V_2]

​​​​​Maybe giv it a try >>>

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_140

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_676

2 furthermore Turkish airlines 1951 at AMS stalled at 400ft or the Colgan Air at Buffalo.

the Asiana crash at SFO might have got the stick shaker a few seconds before collision, but not sure they were ever technically stalled. Recorded as CFIT rather than LOC I believe but happy to be corrected.

a nice list can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_caused_by_stalls

[Zombywoof]

Stalling on approach is certainly not unheard off, just look for Asiana flight 214 in 2013.U huh. This among millions of landings. And some other incidents of this, if you please?

Not even worth continuing.

[Gizm0]

I would submit that stalling on approach is unheard of in the airline transport world. There have been many accidents of this nature in GA, but in airline ops?

Oh, someone will always be able to pull up an outlying incident, but airliners don't stall on approach. Millions of movements per year...

Well I didn't actually specify airline ops (although obviously this does indeed happen). My point is that all pilots can hopefully read, learn & appreciate the facts from accidents that result from a stall on approach. Yes most are GA but a pilot / passenger death within GA (which often includes fare paying pax) is just as devastating to families as it would have been on an airliner. Imagining or believing that a stall on approach cannot / does not happen on an airliner is dangerous thinking!! As I intimated: lessons can hopefully be learnt [by all] - provided they are publicized / discussed.

[michaelbinary]

I would submit that stalling on approach is unheard of in the airline transport world. There have been many accidents of this nature in GA, but in airline ops?

Oh, someone will always be able to pull up an outlying incident, but airliners don't stall on approach. Millions of movements per year...

Next you are going to say that running out of fuel is unheard of in the airline transport world, millions of movements etc. !!!!! (ho hum you are funny, and uninformed).

[aox]

MODS:
Why has this thread been removed from the main page??? Indeed there is now no longer any link to it from there.
It would seem to me that this thread - all about an extremely serious, fatal accident - should be easily visible to all in the aviation community including ALL current pilots. Yes at first sight this appears to be a stall from a mis-handled visual / circling approach - and almost certainly it was - but we don't yet know why. So why do you MODS think that this discussion should not be at the forefront of pilot thinking? Yes indeed there is an awful lot of uninformed rubbish being spouted here (that is the nature of PPRuNe) but the underlying fact is that there is potentially an awful lot to be learnt from this disaster. Just because it was in Nepal, with it's worrying incident rate, does not mean it is irrelevant. I would submit that this could have happened anywhere - including Western Europe & the USA. Stalling on an approach is not unheard of in our part of the world and the fact that the F/O is now known to be experienced, with some 6400 hrs, means that this was overall an extremely experienced crew. Certainly, hours wise, they had more than enough experience (& presumably local knowledge) to have completed this flight safely. WHY did they not is the question - and, as such, this should be afforded more visibility than it is now getting. MODS: Please reconsider this decision and move it back to the mainstream discussion - that way lessons from this horrific accident are more likely to be learned by those who fly day in & day out such NPAs in older, less well equipped aircraft - often also in difficult circumstances.

It' been under Accidents and Close Calls every time I've seen it

It's also been in the top 2 of the Trending Threads every time I went round that way, currently top

[Zombywoof]

Next you are going to say that running out of fuel is unheard of in the airline transport world, millions of movements etc. !!!!! (ho hum you are funny, and uninformed).I hate to do this, but when was the last time a commercial airliner ran out of fuel?

[clearedtocross]

The only fact known for sure so far is that the plane stalled, most likely on approach/final to runway 12 and configured to land (gear extended, flaps probably too) Yes, thou shall keep your airspeed up, but there may be many reasons for a stall other than pour flying, like: one or both prop malfunction (e.g. fine or even reverse pitch), asymetric engine failure, asymetric flap extension, fuel feed problem, severe windshear or turbulence, people moving aft in the cabin etc with a cg close to limits, trim problem, just to name a few. Why always bash the lady F.O first? Red face

[V_2]

I hate to do this, but when was the last time a commercial airliner ran out of fuel?

learn to use Google search my friend and stop embarrassing youself

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_caused_by_fuel_exh austion

la Mia flight probably the most recent in 2016 and quite infamous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMia_Flight_2933

there’s a good air crash tv episode for the TunInter ATR that crashed in the med due incorrect fuel gauges that I’d recommend watching.

[lederhosen]

It is unclear who was in the left seat and indeed who was flying the aircraft. Given that the co-pilot was reported to have 6000 hours and to be in the upgrade process it is plausible that she was. If it was a check flight normally the check airman would be on the jumpseat with an experienced co-pilot in the right hand seat, so that seems unlikely. It does however continue to look, as I suggested earlier, like a mishandled circling approach. A much earlier post from someone purporting to be an ATR training captain suggested the machine could be a handful if it got off speed, which is obviously what happened. The voice and data recorders will give us the facts. But I would expect something along the lines of ‚weather is good let’s do a circling approach for training purposes‘, followed in due course by ‚we are going through the centerline‘ and then ‚watch your speed‘ accompanied by various GPWS warnings.

[Gizm0]

It' been under Accidents and Close Calls every time I've seen it

It's also been in the top 2 of the Trending Threads every time I went round that way, currently top

Hi AOX
I guess that is because I don't know how to use the forum properly! I just log on and it takes me straight to "Rumours & News" - from where that thread has disappeared. My apologies to all - and certainly to the MODS - for not being more "forum literate". Further studying of PPRuNe is obviously required!

[Zombywoof]

Air Transat (08/24/2001) the "Azores Glider" moniker for the A330Fair point, it was over 20 years ago. Fuel exhaustion incidents are frequent on airliners, yes they are. Anyway, enough. Nepal.

[Uplinker]

I would submit that stalling on approach is unheard of in the airline transport world. There have been many accidents of this nature in GA, but in airline ops?

Oh, someone will always be able to pull up an outlying incident, but airliners don't stall on approach. Millions of movements per year...

Well one thing we did regularly in the Sim, (A330), was to practise stall recovery while doing circling approaches and deliberately getting too slow.

PS, my bad about the F/Os experience. Just trying to think of scenarios and reasons why a crew would stall in this day and age, with training supposedly getting ever more comprehensive.

[DaveReidUK]

That would mean he has removed the rest - as it also stated that both were fake (there was apparently a fake video showing the aircraft bank right with an engine fire) - which obviously was fake.

As someone above said, I don't get the logic of the fact he stated that because you couldn't see the pitch up, from a camera inside the plane with no reference points, that it was fake.

Hopefully now the BBC and Guardian have confirmed with the families that it was real, This whole “Real not real” is put to bed.

The most scary thing for me is that people are so accustomed to fakes now and such is the levels of complexity to them, that people literally cannot tell what is real and what isn’t - that is alarming.

Thanks, yes I see what you mean now.

Sadly, Simon appears to have painted himself into a corner by maintaining that black is white, i.e. that the video is fake, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, not least from his own contributors.

Now he has thrown his toys out of the pram by disabling all further comments so that nobody else can disagree with him. Oh dear.

[lederhosen]

Thanks for your feedback michaelbinary. I am glad you agree. In all seriousness I fail to see what the problem is in my suggesting what might have gone on in the cockpit. If you can tell me why my theory of a botched circle to land is less plausible than running out of fuel on a 25 minute flight or mistaking the runway in severe CAVOK I will be happy to learn. We fill find out soon enough what happened.

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlUesjkNCnM

This is the channel that captured the outside video . https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wMOA44fg7RY

As per him , The other flights coming to the new airport for runway 12 , begin to end their turn (almost lined up ) at The point where the video starts . This plane however was late . It suddenly lost some altitude and proceeded a bit and thus all of this happened .


Flight path for runway 12 . but with a turn from different side over the old airport .
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/9n-amz#2ed30fdb
Compared with Approximate observed path from video .
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1WtJopuLkJMA_KOyvtIHwe9d-ZCm2vTE&usp=sharing

[Simplythebeast]

The impact of the crash would have sent the phone hurtling. The likely hood of it landing in such a way as to film a fire - which is in no way intense enough - is minute.
The likelihood of the aircraft coming to grief in the way it did is also minute but it happened…..what is your point?

[macboydus]

Apologies if this message is not correctly formatted—it appears I last commented in 2009—now that's impressive lurking!

What makes this analysis rather challenging is that

a) flights have only commenced into this new airport this year; hence, there are only few samples available to get an idea of what is a typical approach (previous flights, as has already been stated, have come in straight along into runway 30). Comparative data are lacking!

b) the approach to runway 12 at this new airport in fact will look like an approach into the old airport, but it will be high for the latter (as appears to be the case here). I've not been able to find an approach chart for PIA, and because this appears to be the first
to use this end of the runway, it's hard to know whether this is a normal approach. For me, it appears to be not much time to stabilise for 12 (but hey, I used to live under Sydney Airport's parallel runway approach from the north....where they would stabilise up near didgabringyagrogalong!)...I do see on the map rather many challenging hills for aircraft to be stabilised any further up that way towards the Northwest....so perhaps this rather late turn over the old airport is standard? Approach charts would be more than helpful....anyone?!

Anyway, as per usual, I'm enjoying the machinations of the minds here attempting to fathom this incident. It's rather frustrating to see the other site I check—AVHerald—completely close the comments and so adamantly state that the cabin video for this crash is fake. As a scientist, I like to keep an open mind about things. Certainly it's surprising to see such a video, but having examined it, I thought right (!), off to Google maps and attempt to match....sure enough, those tennis courts next to the stadium were a bit of a give away....my only guess is that Simon is just overloaded and has to stop comments out of frustration and a lack of time to moderate.

[michaelbinary]

Thanks for your feedback michaelbinary. I am glad you agree. In all seriousness I fail to see what the problem is in my suggesting what might have gone on in the cockpit. If you can tell me why my theory of a botched circle to land is less plausible than running out of fuel on a 25 minute flight or mistaking the runway in severe CAVOK I will be happy to learn. We fill find out soon enough what happened.

"could be a handful if it got off speed, which is obviously what happened"

Yes something happened, but what ?, apart from the stall what happened ?, you dont know, I dont know, nobody knows.
The only facts generally available are: (correct me if there are more known)

1) The video from the ground shows a plane stalling, followed by wing drop, followed by a crash.
2) The video from within shows the plane flying straight and level with I think at least 1st stage flaps deployed.
3) Everybody in the cabin is calm and happy up to 10 seconds before the crash, so they hadnt been briefed about any emergency unfolding.
4) The plane appeared to be doing a normal left hand circuit approach to runway 12 and was on effectively base leg starting a left turn to line up for 12.

Nobody knows the "WHY", I am sure we could generate a list of 30 - 50+ reasons why the plane ended up stalling, but it doesnt help anybody to guess,
it wont make you a better pilot. When its not a guess then maybe you can learn something from it.

[DaveReidUK]

Also, don't forget BA038, a 777 (01/17/2008) which stalled on approach to EGLL due to ice crystals in the jet fuel clogging the FOHE of each engine. No casualties, thankfully only hull loss.

BA38 didn't stall.

[lederhosen]

In response to your post 220 michaelbinary I refer you to post 85 where someone with ATR experience makes the point that the machine can be tricky and drop a wing in this situation. You make the assertion that it does not help anyone to guess. As an experienced airline captain I am merely sharing my opinion based on what we have seen so far as to what I think might have happened. That is pretty much what pprune is about.

Post 103 attempts to show a possible flight path in relation to the runway. It is certainly not the way I would teach someone to fly a circling approach in an airliner, for example it has a way too short parallel segment to the runway. I see from your profile that you are a PPL so you probably know more about flying than many on here. However flying an airliner is different from a light aircraft and involves a lot less manual flight. The track if it was flown as suggested in post 103 would have put the aircraft in a less than ideal position to land, for example it would probably have been difficult to see the touchdown point from either seat until relatively late.

I am a jet pilot used to autothrust so the details of ATR power management are not particularly clear to me. But it would obviously be an added factor in the equation and if the focus was on terrain and seeing the runway it may not have got the attention it required.

[mobov98423]

the phone itself kept recording until it was destroyed by fire. it was held in his hands, then at the end it lets go and drops. you can also hear faint breathing. the video was lived streamed on fb. his relatives confirmed this and his name. i don't get why all the discussion about it being fake. it is real

[mobov98423]

simon is too high on his high horse lately. the video is confirmed legit by his relatives and his name is out. everyone doubting it please quit. you're making a fool of yourselves. just because SIMON SAYS something that doesn't mean anything. next

[parkfell]

It did, beginning at a speed of 108 knots (vs the 134 projected) and the captain's move to move flaps setting from 30 to 25 gave clearance of a 58 extra, meters preventing the strike of the ILS column by the aircraft. It's in the AAIB report of 2010. Anyway...

BA038 was a unique accident. Totally unremarkable flight all the way from China until within a minute of landing, when a loss of power to both engines caused by ice, entered the equation. FO Coward as PF. Fortunately the captain retracted one stage of flap & effectively glided past the aerodrome boundary. The passenger injuries were mainly suffered during the slide evacuations.
The unfortunate ATR appears to have stalled during a base leg turn onto final, resulting in a rapid rate of roll & increasing ROD. Once past the incipient stage probably insufficient height to recover? Students will now appreciate why stalling with flap in a descending turn is in the syllabus.
Just why will become clearer once FDR/CVR data is known. I suspect rich in CRM aspects for pilots to learn from?

[michaelbinary]

I hear your points.
I dont think post 103 is showing the actual track unless they have access to a much longer video or FR24 coverage.
The video I saw only shows effectively base leg and I commented at the time it was rather close in, measured on google maps its about 2K give or take a bit.
There is high ground to the north and to the west so limiting how large a circuit can be made.
The downwind leg could have been extended a little thus making the turn to final less than 90 degrees.
Looking on google earth 3D gives a really good perspective from the old airfield to the new and location of the gorge.
They were nowhere close to making the turn to final on 12.
Look on the video for a road running top to bottom with a distinct right kink in it, then get the same perspective on google earth and you can see how close in they were and late in turning.
I flattened the perspective a bit so you can see the new airport.
https://earth.google.com/web/@28.20182109,83.98677587,822.65992163a,459.70890945d,35y,111 .7147873h,69.58734423t,0r
and this video(for easy reference) at 7secs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614615840493830147

See how long it will be before they release info from CVR/FDR

[DaveReidUK]

It did, beginning at a speed of 108 knots (vs the 134 projected) and the captain's move to move flaps setting from 30 to 25 gave clearance of a 58 extra, meters preventing the strike of the ILS column by the aircraft. It's in the AAIB report of 2010. Anyway...

On the contrary, the AAIB think not:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/704x319/ba38_non_stall_2_fcdf6b2440f93f120c1412065a3e36bdb4f736ce.jp g

[Austrian Simon]

Anyway, as per usual, I'm enjoying the machinations of the minds here attempting to fathom this incident. It's rather frustrating to see the other site I check—AVHerald—completely close the comments and so adamantly state that the cabin video for this crash is fake. As a scientist, I like to keep an open mind about things. Certainly it's surprising to see such a video, but having examined it, I thought right (!), off to Google maps and attempt to match....sure enough, those tennis courts next to the stadium were a bit of a give away....my only guess is that Simon is just overloaded and has to stop comments out of frustration and a lack of time to moderate.

Now that I find a bit of time, let me share my view and reasons on this video:

So far I found out that there was never a livestream out of the cabin, it was not possible to livestream for this user. Facebook permits livestreams only for users with more than 10,000 followers. The passenger had about 2 dozen followers (and since the crash no new have joined, how could they have been approved even if they requested, if the account owner is dead?) However, the video was uploaded to that account a long time after the crash. This makes clear that somebody else has access to the account and placed the video there a long time later. Only THEN the livestream became public (and this explains why the livestream became known only a day after the crash. Had the video been around as a livestream indeed, it would have been known within an hour after the crash just like the ground observer video).

In the time between the crash and the upload of the video was more than enough time to combine two videos. The first, showing the correct passenger, however, on a previous flight into the old airport (hence before Jan 1st 2023) and the second blurred video, that pretends to show the crash sequence. The transition from the first to the second video is dilletantic. The last fully clear and crystal sharp frame of the first video is followed by the totally blurred first frame of the second video without any transition. The last clear frame still shows the passenger happily and relaxed, the next frame is blurred without transition, there is no visible refocussing of the camera, no movement of the camera, no movement before the camera, no reason for the sudden blur is visible. However, only this first blurred frame "starts" the crash sequence, and the video remains blurred to the very end.

People of Pokhara tell me, that the video in its clear part clearly show the straight final approach to old Pokhara Airport's runway 22, all landmarks etc. are correct. The approach is visible to relatively low height.

Witnesses of the crash however say, that the aircraft was already on a final approach in straight flight (not turning anymore) west of the old airport, crossed the old airport in a nearly perpendicular and straight wings level trajectory across the old runway, and shortly afterwards rolled left and impacted the ground (this is also what the ground observer video shows, the aircraft was wings level until the final roll left!). This approach however is definitely not visible in the cabin video (even if the aircraft was turning base still before the aircraft rolled left, that turn would have been visible in the cabin video too but wasn't).

In the cabin video the development of trouble is also not visible. According to the groundvideo the aircraft increased its pitch progressively, accelerating the pitch rate towards the end. Passengers would not be alerted by this pitch increase and would also not recognize the unusual attitude, however, the trained eye would instantly see the high pitch in the video while showing the outside through the cabin video (this pitch movement was not just a few seconds long, on the ground video the aircraft becomes visible already at a high pitch attitude). Not in the cabin video.

The initial left roll, according to the ground video, was relatively slow at first, hence no big forces onto the passengers, however, clearly noticeable that the aircraft would turn. This is not visible in the cabin video, also no reaction by the passengers. The passengers would have recognized they were on short final having seen the old airport pass by the windows flying over the old runway in a near right angle and would have known, that now a turn would be entirely wrong. Hence the passengers would have been alerted. Nothing visible/audible on the video.

Then the aircraft rolls in with quite some violence, the forces onto the passengers must have been huge and the people would have screamed with certainty in panic. Nothing on the video however.

One of my readers gave me an additional hint, a very good observation: comparing the ground observer video and the cabin video the time in the cabin video between the first blurred frame (before only happy cabin) and the impact is much less than the ground observer video shows.

How did the video get to the public? The BBC writes:

Quote:
Abhishek Pratap Shah, a former lawmaker in Nepal, told Indian news channel NDTV that rescuers had recovered the phone on which the video was found from the plane's wreckage.

"It [the video clip] was sent by one of my friends, who received it from a police officer. It is a real record," Mr Shah told NDTV. Officials in Nepal have not confirmed his claim or commented on the footage.
Endquote

So, on this way the video got the public according to the BBC, possibly also onto the Facebook Account of the passenger. The BBC also raises the question, how even an Internet contact or a live stream could have been accomplished, but nonetheless states the video is authentic because the family confirmed they had seen the video live. However, a live stream was not possible (and the video was uploaded many hours after the crash only), this statement is disproven. I do not think the family is behind the fake (but can't rule this out either), but under this assumption that the family is not part of the fake I believe they are strained with the grief over their lost family member and the sudden interest by media and all those inquiries and said "Yes" and "Amen" to everything, hence the reporter only needed to ask the right question to get his story confirmed (I would even think, had the reporter asked whether his interview partner was already dead, the interview partner would also have said "yes").

However, the BBC story raises one more question: how could one access the mobile phone and get to the video without PIN/password in this time? This all doesn't fit together.

Servus, Simon

[Yo_You_Not_You_you]

Flight path for runway 12 . but with a turn from different side over the old airport .
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/9n-amz#2ed30fdb
Compared with Approximate observed path from video .
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1WtJopuLkJMA_KOyvtIHwe9d-ZCm2vTE&usp=sharing

At the time where the outside video starts , I think the pilot are aware of the stall and have aborted the turn and moving straight to deal with it. The base doesn't go that far along the river as per the witness who has seen rare runway 12 landings.

Thus a Vmc roll in my limited knowledge.

[mobov98423]

simon the blur is from quick motion blur
also from heavy smartphone video codec compression (becomes even heavier when u fast move the phone)

pin and unlock : many people have their phones unlocked with no pin

you make some good points, but let's see what is the truth at the end. the video could very WELL be true

and there was a post crash fire. photos and videos from ground on impact point show this

[mobov98423]

also u say the passengers didn't react in the violent pull up of the nose
it doesn't seem so violent in the external video

they did react later on
there IS screaming heard when the wing dropped

[aerolearner]

However, the BBC story raises one more question: how could one access the mobile phone and get to the video without PIN/password in this time? This all doesn't fit together.

Servus, Simon
Not sure about the specific mobile phone here, but it might be that the camera was set to save media on a removable SD memory card rather than on the device memory. If they removed the card and read it on another device, they may have been able to retrieve the video.

Edited to add:
Even more so, in case the phone had been damaged by fire and not functioning anymore.

[passenger51]

Not sure about the specific mobile phone here, but it might be that the camera was set to save media on a removable SD memory card rather than on the device memory. If they removed the card and read it on another device, they may have been able to retrieve the video.

Where does this Simon guy get the idea you need 10,000 followers to live stream on Facebook. That is simply not true, anyone with an account can live stream on Facebook. If the video is genuine then it was a live stream as recovering the video from an SD card recovered from a phone which was likely incinerated is just too far fetched.

[mobov98423]

indeed. many android models take sd cards and record media on them

[MEA_mann]

Why all this conspiracy theorizing about faked video footage?
So far as I am aware, there has been no suggestion that the crash was caused by someone using a mobile phone and interfering with the on-board electronics.

[alexmclean]

So far I found out that there was never a livestream out of the cabin, it was not possible to livestream for this user. Facebook permits livestreams only for users with more than 10,000 followers.

This is incorrect. I just checked my app, and I am able to start a Facebook livestream with just a few hundred friends/followers.
I was also sceptical of the cabin video when it first surfaced. There are people who would fake that kind of thing for social media engagement. And while the video doesn't show enough to prove that it is genuine, everything in the video matches the known facts. If it was a fake for somebody's social media fame, I'd be surprised if they got even the right aircraft model.

As it is, the video shows

The correct aircraft/airline
The correct flight path
Passengers reacting to the sudden roll
Plausible crash & post-crash

It's possible that somebody found a video of a matching approach and appended the crash sequence. But that doesn't explain the passenger reaction to the roll. And they couldn't have started with any publicly available video, or somebody would have found the source by now.

The simplest and most plausible explanation is that it's a genuine video.

[aox]

BBC item about the video, which names the person involved https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-64287331

Local journalist Shashikant Tiwari told the BBC that Kashyap showed him the video on Jaiswal's Facebook profile, which is set to private.

[michaelbinary]

Using the video 1 - 7s on post 228 and google maps you can see the rough track of the plane and its not perpendicular to the old runway at all.
@7secs you can see a road wth a kink in it at right angles to the plane, so just draw line from that and perpendicular to that line is the approximate track of the aircraft, which is starting a left turn for runway 12. This puts the plane around 300 - 400 feet above the old airfield, its not on final approach, its not trying to land at the old airfield at all. The old airfield is below the aircraft as it heads on base leg to turn final for 12.
So stop spouting nonsense.
Go check the landmarks s1 - 7 in the video with what you can see on google maps or even google earth https://earth.google.com/web/@28.201...9.58734423t,0r (https://earth.google.com/web/@28.20182109,83.98677587,822.65992163a,459.70890945d,35y,111 .7147873h,69.58734423t,0r) and you will see it all ties in with an approach to 12.
As the plane crosses the intersection of the kinky road the left wing tip drop starting a turn to the left, it never completed that 90 degree turn, and you can see if you dont complete the turn the gorge where the crash happened will be straight ahead of you.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1211x1004/screenshot_2023_01_17_221406_8ab4a795f69b06e0889c0c7823c31a5 8223722cb.jpg

[Kerosine]

Really appreciate the interesting and enlightening comments. The conspiracy theory minded will cling to this "it's a fake!" ideology till the day they die regardless of the counter evidence. Human psychology.

[Tobin]

Whether the cabin video is fake, I cannot say for sure, but some of the "analysis" "proving" it's fake is quite sad.

I'll pick one post to respond to, but it's one among many.

So far I found out that there was never a livestream out of the cabin, it was not possible to livestream for this user.
It need not have been a Facebook livestream. It may have been another platform. It may have been a private stream that that immediately uploads to some cloud storage.

People of Pokhara tell me, that the video in its clear part clearly show the straight final approach to old Pokhara Airport's runway 22, all landmarks etc. are correct. The approach is visible to relatively low height.
Which other comments have said is the correct approach to runway 12 at the new airport. The approach overflies the old airport so it looks very similar, just a bit higher.

. The last clear frame still shows the passenger happily and relaxed, the next frame is blurred without transition, there is no visible refocussing of the camera, no movement of the camera, no movement before the camera, no reason for the sudden blur is visible.
Autofocus isn't instant, and it can struggle greatly when there are sudden movements, sudden changes in focus distance, and extremely up-close shots. All of that happened in the video, with the passenger aiming the camera out the window, then toward himself, then toward other passengers, then toward the seat backs only inches away, then repeating the process, and when the actual extreme left bank takes place, it's likely he tries to grab onto the seat on front of him or his own, and that's when the phone's camera is aimed as something so close as to be unable to focus on it, which is then followed only a second or two later by the camera being flung to who-knows-where, again unable to gain focus until it's mostly stationary. Add typical digital video artifacting and I don't see how you can conclude a whole lot just because some frames are "blurry".

The passengers would have recognized they were on short final having seen the old airport pass by the windows flying over the old runway in a near right angle and would have known, that now a turn would be entirely wrong. Hence the passengers would have been alerted. Nothing visible/audible on the video.
How do you expect passengers to react? For them to even notice something is "different" you'd need a significant number of the passengers to have experienced this approach at this airport. In fact, probably none of them had. They have no idea what's "normal". And even something out of the ordinary would not automatically be cause for panic. They have no idea when something is a serious problem.

Passengers will scream and panic at normal turbulence, but kill all the engines and they'll get quiet and whisper "Oh, it's really quiet all of a sudden. Does that normally happen?"

Then the aircraft rolls in with quite some violence, the forces onto the passengers must have been huge and the people would have screamed with certainty in panic. Nothing on the video however.
What video are you watching? I hear the passengers shouting just before the crash.

[BO0M]

A bit of techinical info for the non ATR (and Jet) folk.

ATR has power levers, those power levers go into the notch (similar to the bus) at take-off (in normal ops) and they stay there until descent. Once you reach about 240 KIAS in descent the power levers come out of the notch and are the pilots to use. There is no auto throttle!

All ATR pilots will atest to the fact they practice circling approaches in the sim constantly and some operations around the world do them as their bread and butter daily. Outside of the EU/UK ATRs rarely operate from ILS to ILS. Due to this reason circling approaches get significant training as does stalling on approach, especially now in the UPRT environment.

Some observations:
- Flap 15 appears to be selected (it should have been 30 at that stage)
- Below 500 ft the stick pusher is inhibited but the shaker remains active
- Left turn onto finals requires the LHS pilot (if PF) to look outside but it can be a little awkward and often leads to elevator input (hence why we practice)
- Selecting flap 30 produces a significant balloon, so much so that you are taught to immediately trim (roughly 3 seconds nose down) to avoid this and maintain speed. Failure to do so can lead to losing 10-15 knots very quickly.
- The body angle appears far too high for an ATR in this stage of flight (indicating a low power setting and slow airspeed)
- When you comibine a number of the factors above with a loss of situational awareness you get what we see in the video. A stall on base turning finals.

I doubt there's an ATR pilot here who hasn't practiced this in the sim or an ATR TRI/TRE that hasn't witnessed a crew get close to this situation in the sim or real life.

I've noticed a few times the mention of the ATR becoming a handful at low speeds. This is not accurate! Yes the machine requires good speed control and a solid case of telling it whos boss, which can make it a handful for low time pilots or pilots who havent got the greatest handling skills. A handfull of power will generally get you away from these low speed situations very quickly if you manage to get yourself there.

My comments are in no way saying this is what happened in Nepal they are for those unfamilar with the ATR. There may well be other factors that the FDR and CVR will show during the investigation.

[macboydus]

Some very interesting analysis of the in-cabin video, Simon.

As I noted a few posts back, the confusing factor is that the approach to the old airport looks quite similar to a circling approach to the new one if coming into 12. However, would you not agree that the onboard video shows them too high to be about to land into the old airport? It certainly seems that way to me.

Someone else posted the FlightRadar24 tracking of a recent flight for this same flight number that had indeed landed into 12 (but coming in from the south rather than north), so it does appear that the terrain further west demands this rather tight turn over the old airport into 12.

[DaveReidUK]

A bit of techinical info for the non ATR (and Jet) folk.

ATR has power levers, those power levers go into the notch (similar to the bus) at take-off (in normal ops) and they stay there until descent. Once you reach about 240 KIAS in descent the power levers come out of the notch and are the pilots to use. There is no auto throttle!

All ATR pilots will atest to the fact they practice circling approaches in the sim constantly and some operations around the world do them as their bread and butter daily. Outside of the EU/UK ATRs rarely operate from ILS to ILS. Due to this reason circling approaches get significant training as does stalling on approach, especially now in the UPRT environment.

Some observations:
- Flap 15 appears to be selected (it should have been 30 at that stage)
- Below 500 ft the stick pusher is inhibited but the shaker remains active
- Left turn onto finals requires the LHS pilot (if PF) to look outside but it can be a little awkward and often leads to elevator input (hence why we practice)
- Selecting flap 30 produces a significant balloon, so much so that you are taught to immediately trim (roughly 3 seconds nose down) to avoid this and maintain speed. Failure to do so can lead to losing 10-15 knots very quickly.
- The body angle appears far too high for an ATR in this stage of flight (indicating a low power setting and slow airspeed)
- When you comibine a number of the factors above with a loss of situational awareness you get what we see in the video. A stall on base turning finals.

I doubt there's an ATR pilot here who hasn't practiced this in the sim or an ATR TRI/TRE that hasn't witnessed a crew get close to this situation in the sim or real life.

I've noticed a few times the mention of the ATR becoming a handful at low speeds. This is not accurate! Yes the machine requires good speed control and a solid case of telling it whos boss, which can make it a handful for low time pilots or pilots who havent got the greatest handling skills. A handfull of power will generally get you away from these low speed situations very quickly if you manage to get yourself there.

My comments are in no way saying this is what happened in Nepal they are for those unfamilar with the ATR. There may well be other factors that the FDR and CVR will show during the investigation.

Previous posters have commented on significant handling differences between the ATR-42 and ATR-72.

What's your view on that ?

[remi]

I hate to do this, but when was the last time a commercial airliner ran out of fuel?
These are the ones that come to mind:

Air Canada 143 "Gimli Glider," incorrect fuel load computation used following English/Metric changeover, fuel exhausted while cruising, glided to landing on deactivated runway, all survived
Avianca 52, out of fuel after missed approach, delayed multiple hours by weather while traveling up the E Coast, issues communicating fuel emergency w/ ATC, considerable loss of life
Air Transat 236, out of fuel when leak in one tank led to crew inadvertently cross feeding all the fuel out the leak, glided to landing at Lajes Air Base, Azores, all survived
United 173, ran out of fuel while investigating landing gear light failing to illuminate, crashed in suburban Portland with surprisingly little loss of life
Helios 522, ran out of fuel on A/P after crew incapacitated due to depressurization, cabin crew student pilot was seen briefly in the cockpit by F-16 before loss of power, presumably with supplemental oxygen tank from cabin, no survivors

And so on.

Of these, Air Transat is probably the most recent one? 2001. Helios was 2005 but loss of pressurization was the basic problem. I know I'm missing many.

NTSB search:
www.ntsb.gov/Pages/search.aspx#Default=%7B%22k%22%3A%22%5C%22fuel%20exhaustion% 5C%22%22%2C%22r%22%3A%5B%7B%22n%22%3A%22SPContentType%22%2C% 22t%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22%C7%82%C7%824e545342496e766573746967617 4696f6e5265706f727444657461696c%5C%22%22%5D%2C%22o%22%3A%22a nd%22%2C%22k%22%3Afalse%2C%22m%22%3Anull%7D%5D%7D

Wikipedia has more:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_caused_by_fuel_exh austion

[ZFT]

I believe we need to differentiate between 42-300 and 42-500 which are somewhat different

[BO0M]

They are different.
- 42 (either 300 or 500) flys a lot nicer and has very stable handling characteristics particulary during landing. Some models also have an extra stage of flap.
- 72 by its stretched nature is more difficult to fly and less stable especially during landing and crosswind conditions.

All that said it's a moot point, Yeti only operates 72-500 so theres no switching between types in their airline.

@ZFT I don't really see the relevance of differentiating between PEC and Non-PEC models (300 -500/600) of the ATRs. It bears no interest to the topic, moreover it comes down to pilot preference. Some pilots prefer the Non-PEC models because they aren't as slippery but apart from having to set the props yourself they are no different

[Capn Bug Smasher]

The cabin video was being live streamed to Facebook, must be a first.

Yes, it's insane. Between this tragic footage and the GoPro footage from the Su-25 ejection in Ukraine, I very much feel we have suddenly arrived in the future.

[givemewings]

Aside from the wild posts trying to debunk the video, consider the forces the phone would have been under. It's not going to be crystal clear, smooth footage any way you slice it

[aeromech3]

Any report as to why the resident, in their garden decided to video scan the sky towards the ATR72 ?

[B772]

Also, don't forget BA038, a 777 (01/17/2008) which stalled on approach to EGLL due to ice crystals in the jet fuel clogging the FOHE of each engine. No casualties, thankfully only hull loss.
There was no engine stall and no aerodynamic stall. From memory the engines were still producing some power but insufficient power for a normal short final approach and normal landing.

[ChicoG]

Any report as to why the resident, in their garden decided to video scan the sky towards the ATR72 ?

Perhaps filming something else, and their attention was drawn by the unusually low aircraft?

One of the clearest pieces of 9/11 video was (sadly) captured this way.

What is it that you're trying to get at here?

[ChicoG]

However, the BBC story raises one more question: how could one access the mobile phone and get to the video without PIN/password in this time? This all doesn't fit together.

Servus, Simon

It's clear you don't understand how Facebook Live works.
Once the live stream has finished, Facebook usually process the video and it then becomes a normal Facebook post. It doesn't happen immediately.

And as you can see from the below, one of their friends has confirmed it was his friends who were streaming.Vishal Koswal, 21, a close friend of the four men heard in the video, confirmed the authenticity of the video.

He identified the four men, all from Ghazipur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, as 29-year-old Jaiswal, 28-year-old Anil Rajbhar, 23-year-old Vishal Sharma and Abhishek Singh Kushwaha, 23, who had left for Nepal on 12 January. Local police also confirmed their identities.
I don't think there's any doubt that the video is genuine and I can't see the point in any more incorrect straw clutching to try and "prove" it isn't. This is not elite, special technology, just a normal social media function that lots of people use all the time. Once the stream had stopped, the video is in the cloud and it doesn't matter what happens to the phone.