Tag Archives: Aviation Accidents

World

Nepal Plane Crash Kills at Least 68

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A plane crashed into a river gorge in central Nepal on Sunday, killing at least 68 people and sending Nepalese authorities into a scramble to determine what brought the aircraft down.

The Yeti Airlines turboprop hit the gorge of the Seti River about a mile from its destination, Pokhara International Airport, according to Brig. Gen. Krishna Prasad Bhandari, the spokesman for the Nepalese army. Photos and TV footage showed black plumes of smoke and fire at the site, with crowds swarming around the wreckage.

Gen. Bhandari said that as of Sunday evening the rescue team had retrieved 68 bodies and that search operations had been suspended until Monday morning. There were 72 passengers aboard, including four crew members.

“It’s dark now and the crash site is a river gorge where it’s difficult to work at night,” he said.

Rescue teams worked to retrieve bodies at the crash site of a Yeti Airlines plane.



Photo:

Rohit Giri/REUTERS

The passenger list included 53 Nepalese, five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Australia, Argentina, France and Ireland, Nepal’s civil aviation authority said. The names of all passengers were released by the aviation regulator on its Twitter account.

Tribhuban Poudel, a 37-year-old publisher and editor of a local newspaper in Pokhara, had been traveling home on the morning of the Nepali Hindu festival of Maghe Sankranti to celebrate with his family after attending a gathering of journalists in Kathmandu, according to his friend Manoj Basnet, a Kathmandu-based media executive.

“He had risen in his life through struggles and was ever available to help whoever he could, including his friends,” Mr. Basnet said. Mr. Poudel is survived by his mother, wife and a 3-year-old son.

The aviation authority said flight number YT-691 took off from the capital of Kathmandu at 10:32 a.m. local time for what is usually a 30-minute journey. The plane’s last communication with the Pokhara airport tower was at 10:50 a.m. from the Seti River gorge, and it crashed soon after.

A Yeti Airlines plane in Pokhara last year.



Photo:

NICOLAS ECONOMOU/REUTERS

Flightradar24, a flight-tracking site, said that the ATR 72-500 aircraft was 15 years old and equipped with an old transponder that had unreliable data. In a Twitter post, the website said that the transponder stopped transmitting position data at 10:50 a.m., and that the last signal from the transponder was received at 10:57 a.m.

The plane was made by aircraft manufacturer ATR, a joint venture between

Airbus SE

and

Leonardo

SpA.

Pokhara is a popular tourist destination, with many flocking to the lakeside city for hiking and yoga. Nepal relies heavily on revenue from tourists, with the industry making up about 6.7% of the country’s GDP, according to the World Bank. In 2019, the tourism industry supported over one million jobs in Nepal.

Nepalese Prime Minister

Pushpa Kamal Dahal

called an emergency cabinet meeting in the aftermath of the crash. The government has formed a five-member probe committee of retired government officials and air-safety experts to ascertain the cause of the crash and give recommendations to avoid such an incident the future, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation said. The probe committee will have 45 days to present its report.

Rescue workers sifted through the wreckage of the Yeti Airlines turboprop.



Photo:

yunish gurung/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Plane crashes in Nepal have occurred in recent years, with poor weather conditions sometimes being blamed. Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountain peaks, including Mount Everest.

Last May, a Tara Air flight carrying 22 people crashed into the Himalayan mountains, killing all aboard. The plane, which had departed from Pokhara, went down after swerving due to inclement weather, government officials said.

In 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from the capital city of Bangladesh crash-landed and caught fire at Kathmandu Airport, killing 51 of the 71 people aboard. A government investigation blamed the crash on pilot error, saying that he was under severe emotional distress.

On Sunday Mr. Basnet recalled his last words with Mr. Poudel about two months back. “He asked me when I planned to visit Pokhara the next time,” Mr. Basnet said.

Mr. Poudel had helped Mr. Basnet with local contacts and business leads when he was trying to find his footing as a media professional in Pokhara about a decade ago, Mr. Basnet recalled. They hadn’t seen each other in a while, but Mr. Poudel told him he had been keeping up on Mr. Basnet’s posts on social media.

“You are doing really good in life. Continue doing good,” Mr. Basnet remembered his friend telling him.

Write to Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com and Shan Li at shan.li@wsj.com

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Business

AT&T, Verizon Refuse FAA Request to Delay 5G Launch

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AT&T Inc.

T -0.73%

and

Verizon Communications Inc.

VZ -0.56%

rebuffed a request from federal transportation officials to delay the launch of new 5G wireless services but offered a counterproposal that would allow limited deployments to move forward this week.

The cellphone carriers said Sunday in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that they could further dim the power of their new 5G service for six months to match limits imposed by regulators in France, giving U.S. authorities more time to study more powerful signals’ effect on air traffic. The plan from the companies, which have said they plan to start service Wednesday, could prolong a standoff between the telecom and aviation industries over how to proceed.

“If U.S. airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States,” the chief executives wrote in the letter.

Telecom-industry officials have pointed to dozens of countries, including France, that have already allowed cellular service over the frequencies in question, known as C-band. France is among the countries that have imposed wireless limits near airports while regulators study their effect on aircraft.

The message from AT&T CEO

John Stankey

and Verizon CEO

Hans Vestberg

was in response to a letter Transportation Secretary

Pete Buttigieg

and Federal Aviation Administration chief

Steve Dickson

sent late Friday. The New Year’s Eve missive asked the carriers to postpone their planned 5G launch by “no more than two weeks” while officials worked to address the wireless services’ effect on specific airports on a rolling basis over the coming weeks.

The FAA said it was reviewing the wireless companies’ letter. “U.S. aviation safety standards will guide our next actions,” the FAA said. Representatives from the Transportation Department, the FAA’s parent agency, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

Air-safety regulators have said the new cellular services could confuse key cockpit safety systems and have been preparing to impose potentially disruptive flight restrictions.

AT&T and Verizon disputed claims of any air-safety risk, though the companies already postponed a planned December debut of the new signals to provide more time for telecom and aviation regulators to share information about the wireless infrastructure and aircraft equipment in question.

The Sunday letter from telecom CEOs said transportation regulators’ latest delay request would be to “the detriment of millions of our consumer, business and government customers,” noting that carriers spent more than $80 billion to acquire the licenses in a Federal Communications Commission auction that closed in January 2021.

FCC authorities padded the spectrum they auctioned with a swath of buffer frequencies to prevent interference with cockpit systems. But air-safety regulators have expressed concern that more sensitive altimeters that pick up signals well beyond their defined range could mistake cellular transmissions for terrain. The devices feed data to commonly used cockpit systems that help planes automatically land in bad weather, prevent crashes and avoid midair collisions.

AT&T and Verizon have spent the past year preparing to turn on new signals to provide new fifth-generation wireless technology, a faster and more capable mobile service. Wireless companies in other countries already use similar frequencies, but the spectrum wasn’t available to U.S. providers until recently because of existing satellite users that had to be moved into a narrower band of spectrum before 5G service could begin.

Without a resolution to the aviation-telecom dispute, Messrs. Buttigieg and Dickson warned the FAA’s flight limits would bring severe economic consequences.

“Failure to reach a solution by Jan. 5 will force the U.S. aviation sector to take steps to protect the safety of the traveling public, particularly during periods of low visibility or inclement weather,” they wrote in their Dec. 31 letter.

Airlines have been bracing for significant flight cancellations and diversions due to potential FAA flight restrictions because of the regulator’s aviation-safety concerns. Pilots and airlines had been awaiting details of potential FAA flight restrictions that limit the use of systems that rely on radar altimeters. Aviation industry officials have most recently expected the agency to detail flight limits as soon as Monday.

Over the past week, U.S. air travel has been snarled by a mix of winter storms and staffing challenges because of increasing ranks of airline crews calling in sick with Covid-19 as the U.S. deals with a surge by the Omicron variant. Thousands of flights have been canceled and delayed.

5G and Air Traffic

More WSJ coverage on the debate over wireless frequencies and aviation, selected by the editors.

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com

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Business

United’s Recent Engine Failure Spooked Denver. It’s Happened Before.

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When a Boeing 777’s engine cover broke apart and rained parts on a Denver suburb on Feb. 20, the news rang familiar to Christopher Behnam. In February 2018, the 777 he was piloting as captain suffered a similar emergency with the same engine type.

His plane, United Airlines Flight 1175 to Honolulu, was over the ocean 120 miles from the runway carrying more than 370 passengers and crew when a violent blast rocked it.

The jet shook uncontrollably, rolled sharply, and the noise was deafening, said Capt. Behnam. An engine had suffered severe damage. Years of training kicked in, the pilots regained control and shut the engine down. Even so, the plane was hard to handle. A third pilot went into the cabin and looked out the window: The engine hadn’t just failed; its cover had ripped away.

“After the explosion, it felt like she was going to fall apart,” Capt. Behnam said. “I knew I could fly the airplane. The issue was, can I fly it long enough to land it?” The pilots brought the plane to a safe landing in Hawaii.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates U.S. aviation failures, concluded that a roughly 35-pound fan blade broke in the plane’s Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engine due to fatigue, spiraling forward and causing parts of the engine cover to drop into the sea.

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Business

Boeing Faces New Hurdle in Delivering Dreamliners

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Federal air-safety regulators have stripped

Boeing Co.

BA 3.28%

’s authority to inspect and sign off on several newly produced 787 Dreamliners, part of heightened scrutiny of production problems that have halted deliveries of the popular wide-body jets.

The Federal Aviation Administration said its inspectors, rather than the plane maker’s, would perform routine pre-delivery safety checks of four Dreamliners that Boeing has been unable for months to hand over to its airline customers while it grapples with various quality lapses.

The agency has long empowered Boeing to perform the final safety signoffs on the FAA’s behalf, allowing it to issue what are known as airworthiness certificates needed to hand over new jets to airlines. The FAA said it has withheld the same authority on some of the planes in previous years to keep inspectors’ skills current.

Now, the FAA said its move to withhold final-approval authority was part of a broader set of actions directed at Boeing’s 787 production issues. A spokesman said the agency could decide to have its own inspectors sign off on more Dreamliners. “We can extend the retention to other 787 aircraft if we see the need,” he said.

A Boeing spokesman said Wednesday that the company has engaged the FAA throughout its efforts to resume Dreamliner deliveries and would follow the agency’s direction on final approvals as it has in the past. The spokesman said Boeing was “encouraged by the progress our team is making” on restarting the deliveries.

After halting deliveries in October, Boeing has built up an inventory of more than 80 newly produced, undelivered Dreamliners, according to aviation consulting firm Ascend by Cirium. Boeing has said it expects to resume deliveries by the end of March.

The wide-body jets have an excellent safety record and are used frequently on international routes. Boeing learned of the FAA’s move in January and has already factored the FAA signoffs into its expected delivery schedule, a person familiar with Boeing’s planning said.

Among specific aircraft slated for final approvals by agency inspectors are two Dreamliners ordered by

United Airlines Holdings Inc.

United expects to receive the planes in late March or early April, a person familiar with the Chicago-based carrier’s plans said this week.

The Boeing spokesman said the manufacturer would adjust its delivery plans if needed so it can take the time to conduct comprehensive 787 inspections “to ensure each meets our rigorous engineering specifications.”

The suspension of deliveries has cut off a significant source of cash paid by customers as the plane maker navigates the Covid-19 pandemic and weak demand in global air travel. Bernstein analyst

Doug Harned

has estimated the Dreamliner delivery slowdown could cost Boeing as much as $8 billion in cash flow through 2020 and 2021. He expects half of that to be recovered next year as airlines take delivery and pay the rest of the cost.

Boeing said in January that it would likely continue burning cash this year but has adequate liquidity after raising billions of dollars in debt last year. Investor optimism about the broader travel recovery helped lift its shares by 21% last week. The stock gained another 3.3% on Wednesday, valuing Boeing at $149 billion.

While limited in scope, the FAA move on the Dreamliner is similar to a step the agency took after two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX jets killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.

The FAA stripped Boeing of its authority to perform the pre-delivery safety checks on MAX jets in late 2019. At the time, a faulty flight-control system and production-related missteps with that aircraft were under congressional and regulatory scrutiny. The FAA approved the 737 MAX to resume passenger flights last year.

The Dreamliner lapses are among several quality problems Boeing has faced in recent years in its commercial, defense and space programs.

Many of the 787 quality lapses involve tiny gaps where sections of the jet’s fuselage, or body of the plane, join together. Problems have emerged in other places, too, including the vertical fin and horizontal stabilizer at the tail, according to a March 12 FAA summary of the agency’s regulatory actions viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Boeing has previously disclosed problems with a factory process used to generate small shims—materials used to fill the small gaps where the aircraft sections are joined together. Such gaps could lead to eventual premature fatigue of certain portions of the aircraft, potentially requiring extensive repairs during routine, long-term maintenance.

In its summary, the agency said it would hold on to its Dreamliner approval authority “until it is confirmed all shimming issues are resolved and airplanes conform to the FAA-approved design.”

Write to Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com

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