Nepal havariet - Oppdatering fra BBC / NDTV World / FlightGlobal

 

Pilot survived Nepal crash after cockpit split from plane

19 hours ago

Tom Bennett and Ashok Dahal

in London and Kathmandu

Nepali Police

Eighteen people were killed in the plane crash at Kathmandu airport

The pilot who survived a deadly plane crash in Nepal was saved after his cockpit split from the plane on impact with a freight container, seconds before the rest of the aircraft crashed in flames.

Captain Manish Ratna Shakya, the sole survivor of the disaster that killed 18 people at Kathmandu airport, is being treated in hospital but BBC Nepali has confirmed he is talking and able to tell family members he was “all good”.

Rescuers told the BBC that they had reached the stricken pilot as flames neared the cockpit section of the aircraft embedded in the container.

“He was facing difficulty to breathe as the air shield was open. We broke the window and immediately pulled him out,” Senior Superintendent of Nepal Police Dambar Bishwakarma said.

"He had blood all over his face when he was rescued but we took him to the hospital in a condition where he could speak,” he added.

Nepal's civil aviation minister Badri Pandey described how the aircraft had suddenly turned right as it took off from the airport, before crashing into the east side of the runway.

CCTV footage shows the aircraft in flames careering across part of the airport before part of it appears to fall into a valley at the far edge of the site.

"It hit the container on the edge of the airport... then, it fell further below," Mr Pandey said. "The cockpit, however, remained stuck inside the container. This is how the captain survived.”

The freight container was used by a local helicopter company to store its maintenance tools, local media reported

“The other part of the plane crashed into a nearby mound and it tore into pieces. The entire area away from the region where the cockpit fell down caught fire and everything was burnt,” Mr Pandey said.

The pilot was "rescued within five minutes of the crash" and "was very scared but had not lost consciousness at that time", according to a statement released by the Nepali army.

An army ambulance then took him to hospital.

According to the hospital's medical director, Dr. Meena Thapa, he suffered injuries to his head and face and will soon undergo surgery to treat broken bones in his back.

"We have treated injuries on various parts of his body," Thapa told BBC News Nepali, "He is under observation in the neuro surgery ward."

Nepal has previously been criticised for its poor air safety record

On Wednesday evening, Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma visited the hospital, where he met members of the pilot's family.

Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the crash.

The head of Tribhuvan International Airport, Jagannath Niraula, said that an initial assessment showed that the plane had flown in the wrong direction.

"As soon as it took off, it turned right, [when it] should have turned left," Mr Niraula told BBC Nepali.

Nepal has been criticised for its poor air safety record. In January 2023, at least 72 people were killed in a Yeti Airlines crash that was later attributed to its pilots mistakenly cutting the power.

It was the deadliest air crash in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu Airport.

Saruya Airlines operates flights to five destinations within Nepal, with a fleet of three Bombardier CRJ-200 jets, according to the company’s website.

Black Box Of Aircraft Crashed In Nepal Found, Handed Over To Probe Team

The dead bodies are in the process of identification after conducting a post-mortem and they will be handed over to the family members by Friday.

World NewsPress Trust of IndiaUpdated: July 25, 2024 6:13 pm IST

The plane was flying to Pokhara for engine maintenance of the aircraft when the accident occurred (File).

Kathmandu: 

Nepalese authorities on Thursday recovered the black box of the aircraft that crashed here a day before and handed it over to a probe team formed to inquire into the tragic accident that killed 18 persons, including a child.

A Pokhra-bound Bombardier CRJ-200 aircraft of Saurya Airlines, carrying 19 people, crashed and caught fire shortly after taking off from the Tribhuvan International Airport here on Wednesday, killing 18 people aboard, and seriously injuring the pilot.

The killed people included two crew members, technical staff of the airline, and a family of three, including a four-year-old boy.

Hansa Raj Pandey, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority, said the black box of the crashed aircraft has been recovered and handed over to a probe team for necessary action.

The probe team is headed by Ratish Chandra Lal, former director general of the Civil Aviation Authority, and includes four other experts. The team has to submit its probe report along with recommendations within 45 days.

The dead bodies are in the process of identification after conducting a post mortem and they will be handed over to the family members by Friday, Pandey said.

Meanwhile, Captain Manish Raj Shakya, the sole survivor of the Surya Airlines air crash, is undergoing treatment at the Kathmandu Medical College here and his condition is said to be still. "Though he is admitted to the ICU, he can speak," hospital sources said.

A local media report said Captain Shakya was saved after the cockpit of the aircraft was sheared off by a freight container seconds before the rest of the aircraft went up in flames.

The Saurya Airlines plane was flying to Pokhara for regular engine maintenance of the aircraft when the accident occurred.

Nepalese CRJ200 crash probe will seek to understand excessive roll after rotation

By David Kaminski-Morrow24 July 2024

 

Investigators probing the fatal Bombardier CRJ200 crash at Kathmandu will inevitably focus on the extraordinary attitude the aircraft developed as it lifted off from runway 02.

Nepal’s civil aviation regulator states that the captain survived the 24 July accident but the first officer, and the 17 other occupants, did not.

Video capturing the departure indicates that the Saurya Airlines aircraft lifted off and rolled steeply to the right, reaching an excessive bank of around 90° just 100-150ft above ground.

The aircraft then appears to begin recovering towards wings-level but descends, causing its right wing to strike the ground and the jet to disintegrate.

There are no immediate findings regarding the reason for the bank, and whether it was the result of a wing stall, wrongly-configured flight controls, engine failure, or other circumstances. The instrument departure pattern for the flight to Pokhara has not been confirmed.

Meteorological data from Kathmandu around the time of the crash indicates calm winds and no adverse conditions.

 

Source: via X/Twitter

Captured by a ground observer, the CRJ200 banking steeply before descending and striking terrain

CRJ200s have an early supercritical wing design, derived from the Challenger business jet, with reduced curvature on the upper surface. This delays the onset of shockwaves and reduces high-speed drag.

But the design is susceptible to leading-edge stall, abrupt loss of lift and sudden drop of the wing if airflow is disturbed by wing contamination – to which it is particularly sensitive – or aggressive rotation on take-off.

Video footage of the aircraft involved in the accident, which was lightly loaded, is insufficiently clear to determine the flap configuration. CRJ200s are not equipped with leading-edge slats to improve lift, and Kathmandu is a high-elevation airport, situated above 4,000ft.

Sudden in-flight upset in the roll axis immediately after take-off could also be a consequence of incorrect configuration of flight controls, such as might occur with a reversal of aileron functions. This would normally be detected either by testing, before any scheduled passenger service, as well as a standard ‘full and free’ control-surface check by the crew.

Investigators are likely to explore the recent maintenance record for the aircraft, which was originally delivered to US operator Atlantic Coast Airlines in 2003, to determine whether any relevant flight-control work was carried out.

Nepal’s civil aviation safety oversight has been a subject of concern for several years, with all the country’s operators, including Saurya Airlines, having been blacklisted by the European Commission for more than a decade.

While the Commission has acknowledged the civil aviation authority’s commitment to improve the safety situation, an assessment late last year – just months after a high-profile fatal ATR accident in January 2023 – failed to satisfy inspectors.