KATHMANDU, JANUARY 16

Authorities recovered the black box from the crash site of Yeti Airlines in Pokhara early today. The flight voice recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been handed over to the air crash investigation committee, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

Yesterday, the country witnessed one of its worst accidents in domestic aviation history after a 9N-ANC Yeti Airline flight NYT691, carrying 72 souls on board, including four crew members, crashed into a gorge in Pokhara after taking off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu at 10:32am. Rescue and recovery operation continued throughout yesterday and today, with 69 bodies recovered so far along with the FVR and CVR.

According to CAAN, 41 of the recovered bodies have been identified and the authorities have started handing them over to the respective families after conducting post-mortem. A military helicopter has been sent to Pokhara to bring the remaining bodies to Kathmandu. Meanwhile, search operation for the three missing bodies has been halted for today and will be continued early tomorrow, as per the district police office of Kaski.

EYEWITNESS' TESTIMONY

Khyam Jayru, a senior aircraft maintenance officer at Avia Club Nepal, was going through his daily routine, fixing aircraft parts at his hangar alongside his colleagues in the old domestic airport of Pokhara when he witnessed the 9N-ANC Yeti Airline flight NYT691, making its final manoeuvre towards the landing site at the new international airport.

Although the plane seemed to be flying at low altitude and speed, Jayru went back to work thinking it was a normal procedure at the time.

His attention was drawn back to the plane when one of the foreign pilots nearby started to panic over the plane's odd behaviour. Just seconds later, Jayru saw the plane making a turn before plummeting to the ground.

'It is normal for an aircraft to approach the runway of Pokhara Regional International Airport from over the old airport. At the time, something did seem amiss as it was flying at a very low altitude and was also low on speed. The sound of the plane's engine was also very faint compared to normal flights indicating that it was flying at very low revolutions per minute,' he said.

Jayru added that the plane had likely stalled as a result before the crash.

THEORIES AND SPECULATIONS

Following the release of some videos of the plane seconds before the accident, many people have speculated the plane had encountered an aerodynamic stall. Aviation experts and transport analysts have also speculated the same in various reports of the international media.

'A classic stall, where you lose aerodynamic lift over your wings, the nose is up and the plane seemed to be travelling very slow before the left wing fell,' an analyst shared her speculation on CNN.

'Although unlikely, it appears that the aircraft stalled where a plane usually loses lift from one of the wings before the other and that is what seemed to have happened here,' another analyst told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, Jimbo Burgess, a former senior check and training captain who worked in Nepal for over two-and-a-half years till 2012, also opined that a stall might have developed moments before the impact.

'It looks as though a stall had developed moments before impact. Understanding why this happens may be crucial in the coming investigation. The approach and landing phase is the most intense portion of a flight as a lot is going on in and out of the cockpit along with the unforgiving mountainous terrain, fast-changing winds, and weather. It is no surprise that pilots in Nepal have to undergo extra training before flying into certain mountainous airports such as Pokhara,' Burgess told The Himalayan Times.

'Based on my time in Nepal, the regulators and bodies concerned will always face challenges. An industry that is reliant on professionalism, skill, and airmanship while being built upon a foundation of social hierarchy and status does not always come hand in hand. It poses the challenge of how the regulator ensures that air safety procedures are followed while conforming to the cultural social status. There is no denying that flying in Nepal has its risks. However, when accidents happen frequently, it is clear something needs to be done,' he said.

'TOO EARLY TO SAY ANYTHING'

According to Jagannath Niraula, spokesperson for the CAAN, it is too early to speculate anything as the exact reason for the crash is yet to be determined. He said the Air Crash Investigation Committee formed by the government yesterday was looking into the accident and would release a report within 45 days.

He also clarified that the age of the aircraft did not play a role in causing accidents as daily inspections, pre-flight inspections, scheduled inspections, replacements, and tests of various aircraft components and parts are carried out by the authority and the respective airline companies in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation standards to check the airworthiness of any particular aircraft.

Following the accident, all ATR aircraft flying in the country were subject to detailed technical tests under the government's direction. According to CAAN, no issues were found in any of the aircraft.

A version of this article appears in the print on January 17, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.