Nepal plane crash, that killed 5 Indians, caused by ‘pilots mistakenly cutting power': Report

Nepal plane crash: A report issued by a government-appointed investigation panel has revealed that the Yeti Airlines crash in Nepal earlier in 2023 was due to ‘pilot error’. Nepal's worst aviation disaster in three decades saw 72 people die, including five Indians. The investigation report has said that the Yeti Airlines airplane crashed because the pilots mistakenly cut power leading to an inadvertent movement of both condition levers causing an aerodynamic stall.

The fatal airplane crash in January 2023 took the lives of all the people on the Yeti Airlines flight. The ATR 72 with 68 passengers and four crew plummeted into a steep gorge, smashed into pieces and burst into flames as it approached its destination.

On 15 January, the Yeti Airlines flight 691 took off from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, crashed on the Seti River gorge between the old airport and the new airport in the resort city of Pokhara.

The aircraft was en route from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu to Pokhara, the country’s second largest city, situated under the picturesque Annapurna mountain range.

There were 72 people including four crew members onboard the ATR-72 aircraft when it crashed, but rescue officials have so far managed to recover only 71 bodies with the other missing passenger presumed dead.

Earlier reports had suggested that the Yeti airplane had crashed just ‘10 to 20 seconds’ before landing. An analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had showed the propellers of both engines went into "feather in the base leg of descending."

Preliminary report released after the fatal crash had revealed that the Yeti Airlines flight lost thrust and fell after the propellers of both engines went into a feathered position. 

A Nepali investigation team had handed over the flight data recorder, and cockpit voice recorder of the airplane Yeti Airlines 691 to Singapore to investigate the cause of the fatal crash. 

Further, the then newly opened Pokhara airport in Nepal had also come under fire after a The New York Times reports did an expose on the construction quality and cost irregularities at the Pokhara airport financed by Chinese state-owned firms. 

As per The New York Times, the project, managed by China comprehensive annual maintenance contract (CAMC) Engineering, a subsidiary of Sinomach, has faced criticism, with accusations of inflated costs and substandard construction that compromised the airport's quality.

The article said that Nepal had sought to build an international airport in Pokhara since the late 1970s but politics, bureaucracy and finances have stalled the project until China stepped in.