What: Tara Air de Havilland DHC-6-300 Twin Otter en route from Lamidanda to Kathmandu
Where: Okhaldhunga, Palunge Mountain, Nepal
When: Dec 15th 2010
Who: 19 passengers and 3 crew
Why: Five minutes after takeoff, Air Traffic Control lost contact with the plane.
The flight was scheduled to arrive in Kathmandu 35 minutes after departure and it never arrived.
The wreckage was found at 8850 feet, where it crashed into Palunge Mountain.
All the bodies have been recovered.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Richard Vandervord
What: Sita Air Dornier 228 en route from
Kathmandu to Lukla
Where: Lukla, Nepal
When: Oct 12 2010
Who: 11 passengers, 3 crew
Why: On landing at Lukla, the brakes failed, and the plane overran the (527 meter) short inclined runway and struck a wall at the end.
No injuries were reported, although the plane incurred nose damage.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Vivek Manvi
What: Agni Air Dornier 228-101 en route from Katmandu to Lukla
Where: Bastipur, ~18nm SSW of Kathmandu, Nepal
When: Aug 24, 2010
Who: 14 aboard, 14 fatalities. 11 passengers, 3 crew (At one point there was an announcement of an additional passenger whose nationality was unknown. This is unconfirmed.)
Why: Due to poor weather conditions in Katmandu, the crew diverted to Simara Airport. ATC lost contact at 7.30 am. The plane’s generator had been causing problems and it failed, then the backup generator failed. Without a generator, the pilot is flying blind, without avionics. The flight crashed at 9000 feet in a hillside near Bastipur in Shikhapur.
Other reports say the engine failed.
The casualties were Capt. Lucky Shah, co-pilot Sophia Singh, flight attendant Sahara Sherpa, and passengers R Rijal, P Humagain, P Bhote, K Rai and P Sherpa.
Six foreigners were aboard:four Americans: Irina Shekhets (30), Levzi Cordoso (49), Heather Finch (40), and Kendra Fallon (18), one Japanese: Yuki Hayashe (19) and a Brit: Jeremy Taylor (30) .
This is monsoon season, and the area is remote, and roads many roads are blocked due to landslides. Villagers report scattered plane parts and body parts, and rescue teams are en route.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Vivek Manvi
What: Agni Air Dornier Do-228 en route from Pokhara to Kathmandu Nepal
Where: Pokhara
When: May 11th 2010
Who: 16 passengers and 2 crew
Why: After takeoff, the crew detected a hydraulic leak and turned around to make an immediate (less than ten minutes later) landing.
Apparently passengers disembarked and helped the crew push the plane off the runway.
I’d like to see pictures of that happening in New York. Or LA for that matter.
The Australian Federal Police are sending a team of 5 forensic specialists– Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team– to recover the remains of twenty-four-year-old Chalene Zamudio and 31-year-old Andrew McLeod who were killed in Wednesday’s plane crash in Nepal. DNA identification of the bodies is required; and Nepal does not have the resources or equipment. There were eighteen casualties. Only the pilot survived. The team will be based in Kathmandu.
See also:
Nepal Update
Nepalese Plane Crash kills 18
Update
Fourteen unidentified tourists who died in the crash remain unidentified due to the lack of experts and equipment who can do DNA testing in Nepal. Thursday the team was augmented by three German medical and forensic experts, and more are expected Friday. DNA samples will be taken and sent out of the country.
What: Canadian built Twin Otter owned by Yeti Airlines
Where: crashlanded at the mountainous Lukla airport in north-eastern Nepal in the Mount Everest region
When: Wednesday morning
Who: 18 people died in the crash, mostly foreign tourists from Germany and Australia: 12 Germans, including six women, four Nepalese and two Australian. The captain is the only survivor; he was airlifted to Kathmandu. There Swiss casualties reported turned out to be Australian.
Why: Lukla airport, located 2,743 metres above sea-level has steeply-inclined runway and is considered one of the world’s most dangerous airports.