Nepal, a country that has seen 32 fatal accidents since the year 2000. Over the skies of Pokhara, First Officer Captain Kamal KC. and Co-pilot Anju are on their final flight before Anju becomes a captain. She was five minutes away from landing but was flying an approach she had never flown before. With her in the cockpit is her instructor, who is guiding and checking her performance.
With everything going great, there is suddenly a warning in the cockpit. The plane has just lost power. The engines have become unresponsive. The aircraft starts losing altitude. They are just 500 feet off the ground, and the runway is very close. It’s just one minute away. She increases the power lever. Nothing. Pushes it to the max. Nothing. The senior pilot immediately takes over control. The plane keeps dropping. They can see the runway. But at that time, the plane starts banking to the left.
Will the 72 people on both these planes land safely? Or will this become another black mark on Nepal’s already poor aviation record?
Let’s find out the story of Yeti Airlines flight 691.
It’s a beautiful sunny day in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. And this is an exciting day for co-pilot Anju Khatiwada. Because by the end of the day, she would become Captain Khatiwada. And that would be a dream come true. She is a nurse by education. But she decided to pursue flying after her husband, Captain Deepak Pokhrel, was killed in a plane crash in Nepal in 2006.
Four years after Deepak’s death, she went to the United States to train as a pilot. In 2010, she returned to Nepal to join Yeti Airlines, the same airline her husband used to fly for. She is one of only six female pilots employed by the company. And she had over 6400 hours of experience. Senior captain Kamal K.C. was with Anju in the cockpit. He had around 22,000 hours of flying experience and joined Yeti Airlines in 2009. He usually does the final check before a pilot is promoted.
And that’s the reason he’s on this flight today. Her flights today are between Kathmandu and Pokhara. Pokhara is Nepal’s second most populous city. It’s an incredibly picturesque metropolitan city in the middle of Nepal. And in recent times, it has emerged as Nepal’s tourism capital. It’s the entry point for the Anapurna mountain range of the Himalayas.
And hence, it is frequented by many international visitors. And to accommodate these tourists, a new international airport was constructed between 2016 and 2022. The airport was inaugurated two weeks earlier on New Year’s Day, 2023. Now, let’s get familiar with Pokhara. Kathmandu is around 150 kilometers in this direction. The new airport was constructed just three kilometers east of an existing airport. The two ends of the runway are Runway 12 and Runway 30. Planes flying from Kathmandu usually land on Runway 30 for a straight-in approach. Runway 12 needed a published visual approach.
Yeti Airlines had created one internally, which had the planes flying clear of the mountains by making tight turns and flying at a lower altitude. This did not meet the requirements of a stabilized visual approach. The plane for today’s flight was an ATR 72500. This is a turboprop regional airliner meant for short-distance flights.
This plane was 16 years old, having first flown for India’s Kingfisher Airlines and then for Thailand’s Nok Air before being sold to Yeti in 2019. It’s a workhorse and a very reliable plane, and this specific one was in good working condition. First Officer Captain Kamal and Anju were scheduled for two round trips to Pokhara today. A flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara is 26 minutes long. Co-pilot Anju was on check. She was sitting in the commander’s left seat, and Captain Kamal was in the right seat. While approaching Pokhara during the first flight, the ATC assigned them Runway 30, and they made a safe straight-in landing.
After 30 minutes, the plane reboarded, took on additional fuel, and was taxed to the runway. The flight took off from Pokhara and, 26 minutes later, landed uneventfully in Kathmandu. The next leg is going to be the incident flight. Anju was 30 minutes of flight time away from completing her 100 hours to become Captain Anju. All it would take was to fly this flight from Kathmandu back to Pokhara and land it safely.
In the cabin, flight attendant Oshin Magar is preparing the cabin for the flight. She is also a popular Nepalese TikToker, and she filmed and uploaded a fun little video for her fans. The passengers began boarding the plane, and amongst the 72 passengers was a group of four Indian tourists who were live-streaming their flight on Facebook.
In the cockpit, the two pilots are preparing for the flight.
All are at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. The crew has just finished one circuit to Pokhara, and they are ready for the second leg of the day. The plane pushed back and taxi to the runway at 10.20 am local time. Flight 691 then departed Tribhuvan International Airport at 10.32 am local time. After flying over the scenic Himalayan mountains 15 miles from the airport, they contacted Pokhara ATC. The ATC cleared them for a straight-in approach on runway 30.
The same approach they had done a couple of hours earlier on the day’s first flight. But since this was her familiarization flight, Captain Kamal wanted to ensure that co-pilot Anju was also familiar with the runway 12 approach. So they requested ATC for a runway 12 approach, and the ATC cleared them for that. Remember, the Nepal Aviation Authority has yet to approve this approach. The crew still needs to be trained on this approach.
The tight nature of the approach will also add to the crew’s workload. The plane reached the top of descent at 10.51 am, flying 6,500 feet. At this time, they are around 5 miles away from the airport. First, Co-pilot Anju brought the power lever to the flight idle. The plane began its descent. When the speed crossed 180 knots, First Officer Captain Kamal asked for flaps 15. Co-pilot Anju set the flaps to 15.
At 170 knots, Co-pilot Anju brought the gear down. They finished the crosswind leg and turned left to join the downwind leg. The weather was clear, and the ATC could visually identify the plane. At 10.56.27, the pilot monitoring disabled the autopilot at 721 feet. Five seconds later, the plane crossed 150 knots, and the pilot flying asked for flaps 30. Captain Kamal is performing three separate duties at the moment.
He is performing the task of pilot monitoring. He is also training and guiding Co-pilot Anju and figuring out a new tight approach that has only been done twice before. She is under extreme workload pressure. The pilot flying asked for flaps 30. The pilot monitoring acknowledged flaps 30 and descending. However, unfortunately, instead of moving this flap lever to 30, Captain Kamal erroneously moved the conditioned lever to the feathered position. Remember, the propellers are feathered when the conditioned lever moves to this position and no longer produces forward momentum.
Neither propeller is now generating thrust. Captain Kamal calls out, “Flaps 30 and descending.” He has yet to realize that she’s moved the wrong lever. Five seconds later, the master caution chime echoed in the cockpit. The hum of the engines changed. There was no forward thrust coming from the plane anymore. She pushed the power lever from 41% to 44%. The aircraft starts losing altitude. They are just 500 feet off the ground, and the runway is very close. It’s just one minute away. She increases the power lever. Nothing pushes it to the max. Nothing. The senior pilot immediately takes over control. The plane keeps dropping. Captain Kamal scanned the instruments for faults. He noticed that the flaps lever was at 15 and not at 30. So he moved it to 30.
Unfortunately, the workload in the cockpit is so high that there isn’t a recognition that the conditioned lever is in the incorrect position. The flaps move to 30. With no power being produced, flaps 30 compounded the problem by increasing the drag on the plane.
The stick shaker started shaking four seconds later, indicating an imminent stall. The left-wing was going so slow that it stalled. The right-wing was still generating lift. This created a rotating force on the plane, which caused the plane to bank abruptly to the left. There was nothing the pilots could do anymore. At 10:57.32, the plane hit the ground in a gorge near the banks of the Sethi Gandaki River.
Captain Kamal, Co-pilot Anju, flight attendant Oshin Nagar, and 69 others died in this accident. There were no survivors. There were four Indian tourists in the passenger cabin, live streaming the landing, and the video was still rolling during the accident.