Nepal plane tragedy: Probing committee finds fault in engine behind Yeti Airlines crash

Kathmandu: The investigation committee found that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the crashed Yeti Airlines ATR-72 aircraft, which killed all the 72 passengers on board on January 15 in Nepal, indicated that there was a problem in the engine.
"In ATR-72 aircraft feather means to stay inclined to 90 degrees in spite of being in a certain degree as turned by the pilots. In order to increase the speed, the pilot has to incline the propeller blade using the liver that is in the cockpit. With the propeller blade standing at 90 degrees, the plane would lose aerodynamic movement," the committee said in a report. All 72 people including 5 Indians and 4 crew members lost their lives when a Yeti Airlines aircraft ATR-72 crashed in Pokhara of Nepal earlier last month.
The twin-engine ATR 72-500 aircraft plummeted into a gorge as it was approaching Pokhara International Airport in the Himalayan foothills. The crash site is about 1.6 km from the runway at an elevation of about 820 meters (2,700 feet).
Kathmandu Post on Sunday quoted Sudarshan Bartaula, a spokesperson of Yeti Airlines as saying that the ATR 72 Yeti airlines aircraft crashed between the old airport and the Pokhara International Airport.
After the incident, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal promised the families of the Yeti airlines plane crash victims to "expedite" the process so that they can have the bodies of the deceased soon.
The Prime Minister met the kin of those killed in the tragic crash as he was not able to go to the site at the time of the accident and assured them of accelerating the procedure.
Notably, the families and relatives are waiting for the bodies to be handed over to them at the morgue.
"PM Dahal promised the families to hand over the bodies as soon as possible expediting the procedures. The hospital can ask the government for additional resources in case they need to expedite it," according to an official statement of the PM secretariat.
Earlier, the black box of the Yeti Airlines aircraft was handed over by the Nepal Army to Civil Aviation Authority officials.
A black box is a flight data recorder that records all flight information through a special algorithm. (ANI)