Nepal Air Crash
By skysuccess
@skysuccess (8857)
Singapore
September 25, 2011 5:20pm CST
A turboprop plane belonging to Buddha Air carrying tourists to view Mount Everest in Nepal has crashed while attempting to land in Kathmandu.
The Beechcraft 1900D plane - manufactured by Raytheon Aircraft, now known as Hawker Beechcraft crashed in Bisankunarayan village, just a few miles south of the capital, Kathmandu - killing all 19 passengers and its crew along with it.
Initial report by the tourism secretary has revealed that the 13 foreigners of various nationalities were 10 Indians (yet to be identified), 1 Japanese (Toshinori Uejima) and 2 Americans (Andrew Wade and Natalie Neilan), while there were 3 local Nepalese and 3 cabin crews. None survived.
The plane was believed to have hit the roof of a house before disintegrating into several pieces. Ground reports had reported that there were no casualties from the ground.
While it is unclear as to how the plane had crashed, terrorism had not been mentioned and we will just have to wait for the pending investigations for some answers.
I hope that it is not due to some lunatic acts of terrorism and much more negligence from the air crew.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041635/Two-Americans-19-dead-Mount-Everest-plane-crash.html
1 person likes this
2 responses
@maximax8 (31042)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 11
I am so sorry that the little plane in Nepal has crashed killing everyone on board. I can't understand why the plane crashed into the roof of a house. It was lucky there were not any people hurt or killed on the ground. I think that the mountains and short runway at Kathmandu are challenging for pilots. I don't imagine it was terrorism. Seeing Mount Everest by air must be exciting but travelers don't expect to die on such a sightseeing trip.
1 person likes this
@skysuccess (8857)
• Singapore
8 Oct 11
maximax8,
I have to admit that I am surprise with this news too and I just could not understand how the flight could be conducted in poor weather conditions like a fog. I have had the experience of waiting out 4 days before my wife and I, managed to have our aerial sightseeing of Mount Everest due to fog and poor weather. The pilot and control tower simply refuse to operate. So, I just could not understand how this crash could be due to poor weather and consider terrorism.
This is just unfortunate and yet shocking.
@jennybianca (12912)
• Australia
26 Sep 11
Did this accident happen today, or last night? I think I saw the news last night and don't eremember it. Sounds like a shocking disaster. I hope it's not terrorism either!
Being where it occured, I imagine that weather could be a factor.There have been too many air disasters over the past year or so, including in Ausralia.
@skysuccess (8857)
• Singapore
26 Sep 11
jennybianca,
The tragic crash happened on Sunday (yesterday) around 7+ a.m.(local time) upon returning to Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, after a one hour excursion flight to Mt. Everest.
Ground witnesses mentioned that it was foggy around that time and that there were accounts that revealed that the plane was on fire before going down. Having been on such a air excursion, I am quite surprised by this incident because these flights would not even take off if there was even a slight change of weather. I really hoped that the investigations would rule out terrorism, so we'll have to sit and wait for the latest findings.
In the meantime, the names of the 10 India nationals have been confirmed as follow:
8 passengers are from Trichy, Tamil Nadu (all of them members of the Builders' Association of India) - M V Maruthachalam, M Manimaran, A KKrishnan, V M Kanagasabesan, T Dhansekaran, Kattoor Mahalingam , Meenakshisundaram and K Thiagarajan. The other two Indians were Pankaj Mehta and Chhaya Mehta, with Pankaj working for the UN in Kathmandu.
