Posted on 01/16/2023 7:38:40 AM PST by BenLurkin
Anju Khatiwada, 44, joined Nepal’s Yeti Airlines in 2010, following in the footsteps of her husband, Dipak Pokhrel, who was killed four years prior when the small passenger plane he was piloting for the air carrier crashed minutes before landing.
On Sunday, Khatiwada was in the co-pilot’s chair on a Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that went down into a gorge as it approached the city of Pokhara, in what was Nepal’s deadliest aviation disaster in three decades
“She got her pilot training with the money she got from the insurance after her husband’s death,” Bartaula added.
“On Sunday, she was flying the plane with an instructor pilot, which is the standard procedure of the airline,” said an unnamed Yeti Airlines official, who knew Khatiwada personally.
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said the aircraft last made contact with the airport from near Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m.
Minutes before the aircraft was to land on Sunday, the pilot asked for a change of runway, a spokesperson for Pokhara airport told Reuters.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
**the plane burst into flames before crashing.**
Somebody on that plane that the globulleestas didn’t like?
I don’t think the plane burst into flames before crashing. I think the Post got a little confused.
You needed pedal blocks like on a kids first two wheel bike. (Snicker)
Do they still have those Nepalese temple balls in Kathmandu?
I’m thinking Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
**You needed pedal blocks**
Lol! I’m just glad he knew to practice that approach at 3k feet AGL, especially with his runt of a son at the controls (I finally topped out at 6’1 1/2” at age 20). He and his partners sold that plane when I was 18 and actually getting fairly good at flying it. That was a bummer, but they couldn’t afford to keep it.
Nepal's version of the Kennedy family......
I'd say it was at the exact time of landing.
Shame really. But planes are expensive. I took a couple of lessons in my twenties . My oldest son got lessons as part of a HS program. He soloed but when HS ended he never continued.
“The flight was landing at a brand new airport that just opened on new years day.”
In looking at the aircraft in the still closer up pics, it looked like there were red flaps at the time the aircraft appeared to start to slide left into a stall. I listened to the narrator and he mentioned the original runway as 30 but that appeared to need a downwind landing.
I think the winds had a lot to do with it. They were flying over the Seti River Gorge area which has a history of wind variations as reported by the Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority in 2019. And if they got a big fluctuation in wind direction or volume it could have caused the aircraft to lose lift and stall which the lifting of the nose displayed. And as said, they were so low, with flaps red and gear green, they couldn’t dip the nose to regain control.
wy69
Dad just couldn’t round up enough charter and flight instruction to justify his share. The other two were looking to get out; didn’t need the write off I guess.
If I wasn’t in school, or there wasn’t anything urgent on the farm to do, AND there was room for me on a one way charter, he would take me along. Because he could fold the second row seat down and sleep most of the deadhead leg. He was a busy guy: farming, selling farm machinery, and flying.
Thought I’d be a fighter pilot, but had to start wearing glasses in middle school. The dream was shot down so to speak.
From the video, it looks like the plane was in a landing configuration and was too slow to bank the wings the way they banked the wings and stalled.
When I was learning to the get my private pilot’s license at the St. Pete/Clearwater International Airport, a Cessna 172 was on final on RW 27 when he was contacted by ATC that he was cleared for RW 22, in order to line up with RW 22, the pilot made a turn at a slow speed, stalled and crashed into the bay, killing the pilot and the passengers. It was a lesson learned about slow flight and that it would be better to engage a go-around then to try a maneuver like that in slow flight.
That is what it looked like to me.
The pilots should have engaged a go-around procedure for safety.
That is good speculation. There are also foothills nearby that could funnel the wind into the gorge.
I mentioned on the site that I grew up in the Visalia/Dinuba area. My very first job to earn money in the summer was flagging for crop dusters out of Green Acres airport off Goshen Avenue. They used stearman, which as you most likley know. are perfect for crop dusting. We only had use of other aircraft when borrowed during maintenance, the usual one being an ag cat borrowed from Tulare.
One of the big advantages of the ag cat over the stearman was the engine was smaller and allowed the pilot to see right in front of him when making a pass. It gave him better sight of the trip concerning trees, standpipes, buildings, and any rises in the land, and, of course, the flaggers. A lot safer.
West of the airport, along a cut out and risen canal for the St. John River, was a bunch of alfalfa fields that needed spraying for years. We were aware of this, but along the river there was a wind area that changed directions and strength and it happened to me once.
The aircraft was down about 5 feet off the ground and I was walking to my next position when the wind suddenly stopped, blew forcefully in the opposite direction then back to original direction. It cause the aircraft to lost lift in the wings it bounced on the gear in the alfalfa and went up over me on the ground and bellied into the alfalfa in the field on the other side of the river. No one hurt, but pilots would not use flaggers for that area after that. Didn’t hurt my feelings.
wy69
I play golf next to a farming area on occasion and I can attest to that. There is no room for error...
“There is no room for error...”
Tack that on to the crazies that also will cut under power lines rather than go over them or cut off and square the line later. I had one guy who ultimately was killed flying that used to have gear down in the alfalfa on his runs. He died when we were working a field that had a couple of large walnut trees in them and after he had lunch, I think he took his asthma medication and just missed and went through the tree rather than over and around it. I think a limb broke his neck and when I got to him, I hit the kill switches, pulled him out, and drug him away dead. Rough day.
wy69
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