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CNN Exclusive: Secretive process to select astronauts for NASA’s next moon mission

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CNN
 — 

Sometime this spring, NASA will make one of the biggest announcements in its history when it names the initial four-person crew for its flagship Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in 50 years.

Scheduled to launch in 2024, Artemis II will be the program’s first crewed mission to orbit the moon, flying farther into space than any humans since the Apollo program and paving the way for the Artemis III crew to walk on the moon in 2025 — all aboard the most powerful rocket ever built and at a price tag that by then will approach $100 billion.

Yet, as publicized as the Artemis II mission is, the process of how its crew will be chosen is so secretive that it remains a mystery even for many on the inside. Other than announcing the astronauts’ nationalities — three Americans, one Canadian — NASA has said almost nothing publicly about who will be selected or how that decision will be made.

CNN spoke with nearly a dozen current and former NASA officials and astronauts to pull back the curtain on the secretive selection process. Based on those interviews, CNN not only gained exclusive insights into how the crew will be selected — it has also whittled down the list of candidates those insiders say are generating the most buzz at NASA.

At the top of everyone’s list for the first Artemis crew is Reid Wiseman, a 47-year-old decorated naval aviator and test pilot who was first selected to be a NASA astronaut in 2009. Wiseman stepped down as chief of the astronaut office in November, a prestigious job historically responsible for selecting the initial crew assignment for each mission, but which also comes with a big catch — the chief isn’t eligible to fly in space.

“Being chief is a crummy, lousy job,” former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman told CNN. “No one wants it, especially now.”

While it may be a job that few astronauts want ahead of the Artemis crew assignments, it does come with one big advantage.

“Historically, the one benefit of being chief is that, when you did step down, you gave yourself the best flight assignment available at the time. That was kind of an acknowledged perk,” Reisman said. “You did this horrible job on our behalf. Thank you for doing that. Here’s your reward. You get to put yourself in the best seat around.”

Without question, the best open seat right now is on Artemis II — a high-pressure, high-visibility mission that will send four astronauts on a roughly 10-day mission around the moon and back.

INTERACTIVE: Trace the path Artemis I will take around the moon and back

Before stepping down as chief in November, just two days before the launch of Artemis I, the program’s first successful uncrewed test flight, Wiseman made another consequential move in August, when he reversed a previous NASA decision to select the Artemis crew from an initial core group of just 18 astronauts previously deemed the “Artemis Team.”

Instead, Wiseman expanded the group of candidates to all 41 active NASA astronauts.

“The way I look at it, any one of our active astronauts is eligible for an Artemis mission,” Wiseman said at the time. “We just want to assemble the right team for this mission.”

Determining the “right team” for a mission to space has always been a mysterious process, going all the way back to the 1950s. That’s when NASA was making its first flight assignments for its initial Mercury missions, made famous by Tom Wolfe’s book “The Right Stuff.”

Though the criteria may have changed, the process remains incredibly secretive. CNN has learned the decision for who gets to go to the moon will be made by three key people at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where every US astronaut has lived and trained since 1961.

The first person in the decision process is the chief astronaut, a role currently filled on an acting basis by Wiseman’s deputy, Drew Feustel. Sources told CNN that the chief, whether it’s Feustel or someone else, will take their initial recommendations to the head of the Flight Operations Directorate, Norm Knight, and then on to the director of Johnson Space Center, Vanessa Wyche, who is responsible for signing off on the final four selections.

Cracking the code on how that decision is made is as complex as spaceflight itself.

“To this day, it’s a dark area,” former NASA astronaut Mike Mullane told CNN. “It’s terra incognita (unknown territory). Nobody knows! At least not in our era they didn’t.”

What is known is that NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former Democratic senator from Florida, will have no role in the process, something he confirmed for the first time to CNN earlier in January when he said that the space agency’s Washington leadership will “stay out of the selection” of the Artemis II crew.

“That is done by the people at the Johnson Space Center. They will make the decision,” Nelson told CNN. “I do not know if they’ve decided who the crew is, nor should I.”

The only thing set in stone is that the Artemis II crew will consist of three American astronauts and one Canadian, terms that were cemented in a 2020 treaty between the two countries. From the beginning, NASA has also emphasized the need for a program named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, Artemis, to have a crew with a heavy mix of gender, racial and professional diversity.

NASA has a far more diverse pool of astronauts to choose from now than during the Mercury program, when all seven astronauts were White, male, military test pilots. More than a third of the Artemis generation’s 41 astronauts are women and 12 are people of color.

The Artemis generation of astronauts is also professionally diverse, with only 16 pilots in its ranks. The rest are “mission specialists” with expertise in biology, geography, oceanography, engineering and medicine.

Nearly a dozen current and former NASA officials and astronauts told CNN they anticipated multiple test pilots being named to the crew of Artemis II, since the mission marks the first crewed test flight to the moon since the Apollo program.

“Just having the courage to go in there and be the first ones and be cool about it, that does take a certain amount of skill and experience and maturity,” said Reisman, the former astronaut. “We’re going beyond Low Earth Orbit for the first time in a very long time, on only the second flight of this vehicle.”

If Wiseman, a White man, is selected, that means the other spots will almost certainly need to go to at least one woman and at least one person of color.

People familiar with the process tell CNN that along with Wiseman, there are a handful of other candidates atop the list. Among them is Victor Glover, a 46-year-old naval aviator who returned to Earth from his first spaceflight in 2021 after piloting the second crewed flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and spending nearly six months aboard the International Space Station. The veteran of four spacewalks earned a master’s in engineering while moonlighting as a test pilot.

Randy Bresnik, 55, is also a decorated naval aviator and test pilot who flew combat missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has flown two missions to the International Space Station: one on the Space Shuttle, another on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Bresnik is often mentioned as a top contender for Artemis because, since 2018, he has overseen the astronaut office’s development and testing of all rockets and spacecrafts that will be used in the Artemis missions.

There are four women who people familiar with the process tell CNN are atop the list of likely candidates. Among them are Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, both of whom made history in 2019 when together they performed the first all-female spacewalk.

The 43-year-old Koch, a veteran of six spacewalks, also holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, with a total of 328 days in space. Koch, an electrical engineer, and Meir, a 45-year-old biologist, were both selected as mission specialists in NASA’s 2013 astronaut class after stints at remote scientific bases in polar regions. That experience of surviving in hostile climates and uncomfortable environments is critical for a crew who will be cramped inside a 17-foot-wide (5-meter-wide), gumdrop-shaped capsule for roughly 10 days.

“We pride ourselves on expeditionary behavior: being a good teammate, emptying the trash can when it’s full, cleaning out the dishwasher when your parents ask you. Those sorts of things,” Wiseman said in August. “That’s really what we’re looking for in those first Artemis missions. Technical expertise. Team player.”

Anne McClain is a decorated army pilot and West Point graduate who flew more than 200 combat missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and went on to graduate from the US Naval Test Pilot School in 2013, the same year she was selected to be a NASA astronaut. After launching on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2018, the 43-year-old spent more than 200 days in space at the International Space Station and served as lead spacewalker on two spacewalks.

Stephanie Wilson is the most senior astronaut on this list. The 56-year-old was selected to be an astronaut more than a quarter century ago in the class of 1996. Wilson served as a mission specialist on three Space Shuttle flights, including the first flight after the 2003 Columbia disaster, which killed seven astronauts.

The final seat on the Artemis II crew will be filled by a Canadian, and Jeremy Hansen is the most buzzed about astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency. Hansen was selected to be an astronaut almost 14 years ago, but he’s still waiting for his first flight assignment. The 47-year-old fighter pilot recently became the first Canadian to be put in charge of training for a new class of NASA astronauts.

All eight astronauts on CNN’s list of top contenders are highly qualified overachievers in the prime of their careers. But sometimes the deciding factor can come down to something frustratingly small.

“The problem is it can be influenced by trivial things, like what size spacesuit you wear. If there is only a medium and a large and you need the extra-large, you’re screwed. You’re not going to get assigned to the mission,” said Reisman, the former astronaut and veteran of three spacewalks. “It can be crazy, little things that dictate how it all comes out and it’s not always the most equitable or transparent process.”

Typically, NASA also strives for a professionally diverse crew with a healthy blend of rookies and veterans, aiming for a mix of military pilots and citizen scientists — doctors, engineers, astrophysicists, biologists and geologists — with a range of strengths.

“Not all astronauts are created equal when it comes to how good they do the job. Not all astronauts are equally as good at doing spacewalks. Not all astronauts are equally as good at doing robotics,” Reisman said. “The standard line is, if you’re qualified, you’re qualified. If you pass the test, then it shouldn’t matter. But when you have really tricky missions, it does matter, and you do want to put your best team forward.”

That is especially true for the crew of Artemis II, which will be riding on a rocket that’s only had one successful test flight.

As secretive as the crew selection process is for Artemis, it used to be even more confusing. That was especially true during the early days of the Space Shuttle program when, for the first and only time in NASA’s history, a non-astronaut had near total control over who flied and who stayed behind on Earth: George Abbey.

“George didn’t operate by committee any more than Josef Stalin had. His was the only voice that counted,” wrote Mullane, the retired astronaut, in his memoir, “Riding Rockets,” about the former director of the Johnson Space Center. “Everything about the most important aspect of our career — flight assignments — was as unknown to us as the dark matter of space was to astrophysicists.”

By the time former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who famously spent a year in space, was selected in 1996, the power had shifted back to the chief astronaut. Kelly described the flight assignment process as still “shrouded in mystery,” though he did recall a push toward more transparency by then-Chief of the Astronaut Office Bob Cabana, the current associate administrator of NASA.

“Bob put a big board in his office. He had all the shuttle flights lined up and certain people’s names would be penciled in next to them,” Kelly said. “Reid (Wiseman) did something similar. He was more of an open book. He would tell people what he was thinking.”

Now, Wiseman is on the other side, waiting along with every other active astronaut for the announcement of a lifetime, which the NASA administrator said would come “later in the spring.”

For those who don’t make the cut, Artemis is far from the only game in town. NASA astronauts are currently training and flying to the International Space Station for long-duration spaceflights on the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. A third option, Boeing’s Starliner, is slated to fly astronauts for the first time this spring. The expectation is that every active astronaut will eventually be assigned to a flight. But only eight will get to fly to the moon on either Artemis II or Artemis III.

“This is a special and unique opportunity and, frankly, I’m going to be super jealous of whoever they pick,” Reisman said.

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Business

Flybe flights canceled after UK airline ceases trading

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London
CNN
 — 

British airline Flybe has “ceased trading” and canceled all scheduled flights, the company and the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Saturday.

“Flybe, which operated scheduled services from Belfast City, Birmingham and Heathrow to airports across the United Kingdom and to Amsterdam and Geneva, has ceased trading,” the CAA wrote in a statement.

“We urge passengers planning to fly with this airline not to go to the airport as all Flybe flights are canceled,” consumer director for CAA Paul Smith was quoted saying.

In a statement posted to social media Flybe warned that canceled flights “will not be rescheduled.”

The company has been placed into administration, according to the statement.

The Exeter-based budget carrier was founded in 1979 and at one point was Europe’s largest independent regional airline, carrying 8 million passengers a year and operating more than 200 routes.

The airline had been struggling before Saturday’s announcement. Flybe collapsed over the coronavirus pandemic as the outbreak tipped the entire global airline industry into crisis. It was rescued in 2021 after administrators agreed on a deal with company Thyme Opco.

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Business

Flybe flights canceled after UK airline ceases trading

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London
CNN
 — 

British airline Flybe has “ceased trading” and canceled all scheduled flights, the company and the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Saturday.

“Flybe, which operated scheduled services from Belfast City, Birmingham and Heathrow to airports across the United Kingdom and to Amsterdam and Geneva, has ceased trading,” the CAA wrote in a statement.

“We urge passengers planning to fly with this airline not to go to the airport as all Flybe flights are canceled,” consumer director for CAA Paul Smith was quoted saying.

In a statement posted to social media Flybe warned that canceled flights “will not be rescheduled.”

The company has been placed into administration, according to the statement.

The Exeter-based budget carrier was founded in 1979 and at one point was Europe’s largest independent regional airline, carrying 8 million passengers a year and operating more than 200 routes.

The airline had been struggling before Saturday’s announcement. Flybe collapsed over the coronavirus pandemic as the outbreak tipped the entire global airline industry into crisis. It was rescued in 2021 after administrators agreed on a deal with company Thyme Opco.

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World

From China to Japan, deadly cold is gripping East Asia. Experts say it’s the ‘new norm’

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Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

A deadly cold snap that is gripping East Asia has killed at least four people in Japan after subzero temperatures and heavy snow brought travel chaos during the Lunar New Year holiday, with climate experts warning that such extreme weather events had become the “new norm.”

Japanese officials said all four of those who died on Wednesday and Thursday had been working to clear snow amid what Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno has called a “once-in-a-decade cold snap.”

Two of the deaths were reported in the western Niigata prefecture, with one in southwestern Oita prefecture and one in southern Okayama prefecture – where the victim had a heart attack.

In neighboring South Korea, heavy snow warnings were issued this week as temperatures in the capital Seoul fell as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) and plummeted to record lows in other cities, officials said. Residents said it began snowing heavily overnight late Wednesday into Thursday.

On the popular tourist island of Jeju, harsh weather this week led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights while passenger ships were forced to stay in port due to huge waves, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters.

“Cold air from the North Pole has reached South Korea directly,” after traveling through Russia and China, Korea Meteorological Administration spokesperson Woo Jin-kyu told CNN.

– Source:
CNN
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See what life is like inside one of the world’s coldest places

Woo said that while scientists took a long-term view of climate change, “we can consider this extreme weather – extremely hot weather in summer and extremely cold weather in winter – as one of the signals of climate change.”

Across the border in Pyongyang, North Korean authorities warned of extreme weather conditions as the cold wave swept through the Korean Peninsula. Temperatures in parts of North Korea were expected to dip below minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit), state media reported.

In Japan, hundreds of domestic flights were canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday due to heavy snow and strong winds that hampered visibility. Major carriers Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways canceled a combined total of 229 flights.

Meanwhile, high-speed trains were suspended between the northern Fukushima and Shinjo stations, Japan Railway Group said.

China’s meteorological authority has also forecast big temperature drops in parts of the country and on Monday issued a blue alert for a cold wave – the lowest level in a four-tier warning system.

Mohe, China’s northernmost city, on Sunday saw temperatures drop to minus 53 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit) – its coldest ever recorded, meteorologists said. Ice fog – a weather phenomenon that occurs only in extreme cold when water droplets in air remain in liquid form – is also expected in the city this week, local authorities said.

Other parts of Asia also felt the impacts of harsh cold weather.

Earlier this month in Russian Siberia, temperatures in the city of Yakutsk stood at minus 62.7 degrees Celsius (minus 80.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – a record for a place widely known as the world’s coldest city.

The cold was also felt in Afghanistan, where Taliban officials reported the deaths of at least 157 people as the country experiences one of its coldest ever winters with minimal humanitarian aid. Officials said temperatures in early January had plummeted to as low as minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 Fahrenheit).

Yeh Sang-wook, a climate professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, attributed the extreme cold wave on the Korean Peninsula to Arctic winds from Siberia, adding that the cold wave in South Korea this year was partly due to the melting of Arctic ice caps from a warming climate.

“There has been a record melting last year and this year,” he said. “When sea ice is melted, the sea opens up, sending up more vapor into air, leading to more snow in the north.”

As climate change worsens, the region would face more severe cold weather in the future, he said.

“There is no other (explanation),” he said. “Climate change is indeed deepening and there is a consensus among global scientists that this kind of cold phenomenon will worsen going forward.”

Kevin Trenberth, from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), agreed that “extreme weather events are the new norm,” adding, “we certainly can expect that weather extremes are going to be worse than they were before.”

He also pointed to the El Niño and La Niña climate pattern cycles in the Pacific Ocean that affect weather worldwide.

La Niña, which typically has a cooling effect on global temperatures, is one of the reasons for the current cold snap, he said.

“There’s certainly a large natural variability that occurs in the weather but … we often hear about the El Nino phenomenon and at the moment we’re in the La Niña phase. And that certainly influences the kinds of patterns that tend to occur. And so that’s a player as well,” he said.

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World

Nepal: Harrowing video purportedly shows last moments inside cabin before deadly plane crash

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CNN
 — 

A Facebook Live video purportedly showing the last terrifying moments inside the cabin on Yeti Airlines flight 691 before it crashed in Nepal on Sunday has circulated widely online, as search and recovery efforts continue on the ground.

The plane crashed while en route from the Nepalese capital Kathmandu to Pokhara, a tourist gateway to the Himalayas. There were 72 people on board, including four crew members, according to an airline spokesperson.

With all but one body recovered, the crash marks the country’s deadliest air disaster in more than 30 years.

The search to locate the last remaining victim is ongoing, Anil Shahi, a local official, said Tuesday.

The video was purportedly live streamed from inside the plane by a passenger, Sonu Jaiswal, with footage beginning moments before the plane crashed. It shows a plane window with the wing seen outside as the aircraft banks sharply to the left.

At one point, seemingly unaware of the impending danger, Jaiswal turns the video to himself, smiling slightly amid chatter and laughter in the background. Several passengers can be heard conversing excitedly in a mix of Hindi and Punjabi; one person says, “Look at that body of water, it’s excellent,” as the plane passes by a lake.

The mood inside the plane appears calm, with no emergency warnings from the pilot or airline crew. Seconds later, the video abruptly starts shaking with shouts heard; the camera loses focus, only showing flashes of light and loud noise, before the scene erupts in fire.

CNN has corroborated the video based on geolocation, a flight manifest and information on the Yeti Airlines website.

Jaiswal is listed as a passenger on the flight manifest, and the seat number listed for him on the airline website matches the visuals taken from inside the plane.

A close friend of Jaiswal in India, Arman Ansari, also confirmed it was Jaiswal seen in the video. He added that he was watching a Facebook Live stream from Jaiswal during the flight.

“We were watching it. We had watched for just a few seconds and then it got cut. We did not think much about it,” he said.

Aryaka Akhouri, the chief of Gazipur district in India where Jaiswal lived, said she had spoken to Jaiswal’s parents, and confirmed he was on the plane and the one filming the video.

A spokesman for Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has said the video is not from Sunday’s crash. When pressed, he said he and his team had no technical evidence to support that claim. Instead, he pointed to passengers laughing at the first sign of turbulence before panic set in seconds later as evidence it could not be the Yeti Airlines flight.

Aviation analyst Mary Schiavo told CNN the video could be helpful in the investigation, saying it could have captured details not recorded in the plane’s black box. For instance, the aircraft’s flap, which gives extra lift during landing, “does not look like (it’s) fully extended,” she said.

She added that what seems to be the sound of an engine suggests “they had power to at least one engine.”

– Source:
CNN
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Tragic twist discovered involving co-pilot in Nepal plane crash

Search and recovery efforts continued on Tuesday for the two people still missing, according to Nepali police. District police chief Ajaya KC said foggy weather was making the search difficult and authorities planned to use drones to locate those missing when the weather improves.

Meanwhile, an investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, with assistance from French investigators who will be on site by Tuesday. The plane’s black box, which records flight data, was recovered on Monday and would be handed to CAAN, officials said.

Aviation authorities said Tuesday that the pilot of the plane had asked air traffic controllers for a change of runway just minutes before the aircraft went down.

Pokhara airport has two runways that pilots can choose between when landing and the pilot’s request had been accepted, CAAN spokesperson Jagannath Niroula said.

“When the Yeti Airlines pilot asked the tower if he can take the second runway to land, the tower approved it,” he said. “The tower controllers didn’t ask why the pilot wanted to use a different runway than originally planned since it wasn’t an issue technically from their end which runway the pilot chooses to land,” Niroula told CNN.

No distress calls were reported from the pilot to the Pokhara airport tower controllers, he added.

In Kathmandu and Pokhara, crowds held candlelight vigils for the victims on Monday.

Of the bodies recovered, at least 41 have been identified, Yeti Airlines said in a statement Monday. Some bodies will be handed over to their families in Pokhara, while others – including those of foreign nationals – will be airlifted to Kathmandu on Tuesday, police said.

Fifteen foreign nationals were aboard, hailing from India, Russia, South Korea, Australia, Ireland, Argentina and France, according to CAAN.

Videos on Monday showed grieving families in Pokhara, waiting outside the hospital where autopsies are being conducted. The postmortems were delayed because a team of forensic experts didn’t reach Pokhara until Monday afternoon, according to police and airline officials.

Some families have begun speaking out about the loss of their loved ones. In a statement Tuesday, the family of Australian victim Myron Love said the 29-year-old teacher had been a keen cyclist who “lived life to the fullest.”

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World

Search resumes for missing people as Yeti Airlines disaster highlights dangers of flying in Nepal

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CNN
 — 

Hundreds of emergency personnel on Monday resumed a search and recovery mission in Nepal following a deadly plane crash that has once again highlighted the dangers of air travel in a country often referred to as one of the riskiest places to fly.

Of the 72 people on board, at least 68 were killed when a Yeti Airlines flight crashed near the city of Pokhara Sunday.

Four others remain missing, but Kaski District Police Chief Superintendent Ajay K.C. said Monday that the chance of finding survivors was “extremely low” as workers used a crane to pull bodies from the gorge.

The crash is the worst air disaster in the Himalayan nation in 30 years. It is also the third-worst aviation accident in Nepal’s history, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network.

Experts say conditions such as inclement weather, low visibility and mountainous topography all contribute to Nepal’s reputation as notoriously dangerous for aviation.

The Yeti Airlines flight Sunday had nearly finished its short journey from the capital Kathmandu to Pokhara when it lost contact with a control tower. Some 15 foreign nationals were aboard, according to the country’s civil aviation authority.

Pokhara, a lakeside city, is a popular tourist destination and gateway to the Himalayas. It serves as the starting point for the famous Annapurna Circuit trekking route, with more than 181,000 foreigners visiting the area in 2019.

A government committee is now investigating the cause of the crash, with assistance from French authorities. The Yeti Airlines plane was manufactured by aerospace company ATR, headquartered in France.

The plane’s black box, which records flight data, was recovered on Monday and would be handed to the civil aviation authority, officials said.

Fickle weather patterns aren’t the only problem for flight operations. According to a 2019 safety report from Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, the country’s “hostile topography” is also part of the “huge challenge” facing pilots.

Nepal, a country of 29 million people, is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, and its beautiful rugged landscapes make it a popular tourist destination for trekkers.

But this terrain can be difficult to navigate from the air, particularly during bad weather, and things are made worse by the need to use small aircraft to access the more remote and mountainous parts of the country.

Aircraft with 19 seats or fewer are more likely to have accidents due to these challenges, the Civil Aviation Authority report said.

Kathmandu is Nepal’s primary transit hub, from where many of these small flights leave.

The airport in the town of Lukla, in northeastern Nepal, is often referred to as the world’s most dangerous airport. Known as the gateway to Everest, the airport’s runway is laid out on a cliffside between mountains, dropping straight into an abyss at the end. It has seen multiple fatal crashes over the years, including in 2008 and 2019.

A lack of investment in aging aircraft only adds to the flying risks.

In 2015, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, prioritized helping Nepal through its Aviation Safety Implementation Assistance Partnership. Two years later, the ICAO and Nepal announced a partnership to resolve safety concerns.

While the country has in recent years made improvements in its safety standards, challenges remain.

In May 2022, a Tara Air flight departing from Pokhara crashed into a mountain, killing 22 people.

In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.

And in 2016, a Tara Air flight crashed while flying the same route as the aircraft that was lost Sunday. That incident involved a recently acquired Twin Otter aircraft flying in clear conditions.

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World

At least 32 killed as Yeti Airlines flight crashes in Nepal’s Pokhara

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Kathmandu, Nepal
CNN
 — 

At least 32 people were killed on Sunday when an aircraft crashed near central Nepal’s Pokhara, a spokesman for the airline said.

Seventy-two people – four crew members and 68 passengers – were on board the ATR-72 plane operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines when it crashed, Yeti Airlines spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said.

The country’s civil aviation authority reported that 53 of the passengers and all four crew members were Nepali. Fifteen foreign nationals were on the plane as well: five were Indian, four were Russian and two were Korean. The rest were individual citizens of Australia, Argentina, France and Ireland.

The district police and the district administration office are carrying out a rescue operation and hope to rescue at least a few survivors, said Tek Bahadur K.C., the chief district officer of Kaski.

He said 32 dead bodies were now in Gandaki Hospital.

The aircraft had been flying from the capital of Kathmandu to Pokhara, some 129 kilometers (80 miles) west of the capital, the country’s state media The Rising Nepal reported.

Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he was “deeply saddened by the sad and tragic accident.”

“I sincerely appeal to the security personnel, all agencies of the Nepal government and the general public to start an effective rescue,” Dahal said on Twitter.

The Himalayan country of Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record of air accidents. Its weather can change suddenly and airstrips are typically sited in difficult-to-reach mountainous areas.

Last May, a Tara Air flight carrying 22 people crashed into a Himalayan mountain at an altitude of about 14,500 feet. That was the country’s 19th plane crash in 10 years and its 10th fatal one during the same period, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

This is a developing story. More to follow.

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Business

Boeing 737 Max 8 takes off in China for the first time since 2019

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CNN
 — 

A Boeing 737 Max 8 took off in China on Friday, for the first time since the government grounded all 737 Max 8 planes in 2019, according to the flight tracking website, Flightradar24.

In March 2019, Chinese aviation authorities instructed airlines in the country to ground all their Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, citing the need for “strict control of safety risks.” The decision followed two 737 Max 8 crashes in Ethiopia in 2019 and Indonesia in 2018.

The Boeing 737 Max 8 that took off Friday is operated by China Southern Airlines and traveled from Guangzhou to Zhengzhou, according to Flightradar24. The flight comes as the Chinese travel market is recovering after the country abandoned zero-Covid policies.

In September, Boeing and its former CEO Dennis Muilenburg agreed to pay hefty fines to settle charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission alleging they misled the public about the safety of the 737 Max following the two fatal crashes.

The SEC had alleged that, following an October 2018 crash of a Lion Air 737 Max jet that killed 189 people, Boeing and Muilenburg knew that part of the plane’s flight control system posed an ongoing safety concern yet told the public that the 737 Max was safe to fly.

After a March 10, 2019 fatal 737 Max crash, the SEC alleged that Boeing and Muilenburg knowingly misled the public about “slips” and “gaps” in the certification process of that flight control system.

– CNN’s David Goldman contributed to this report

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World

Peru: Protester killed as anti-government violence spreads to tourist city

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CNN
 — 

One protester has died and at least 19 Peruvian police officers were injured in anti-government clashes in Cusco as officials in the tourist city put health facilities on red alert.

Protesters had tried to enter the Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport during curfew Wednesday, an Interior Minister statement said. The officers injured suffered from head trauma and bruises, it added.

A member of the Anansaya Urinsaya Ccollana de Anta indigenous community was later reported to have been killed in the city, bringing the death toll across the country to 48 since protests began in December following the ousting of leftist former President Pedro Castillo, according to the Peruvian Ombudsman report.

“We demand an immediate investigation to find those responsible for the death and proceed to the respective sanctions,” the Ombudsman said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.

The Ministry of the Interior reported that the Regional Health Management of Cusco had placed all health establishments on red alert.

Thousands have paid tribute to the dead by parading coffins through the streets of Juliaca, a city where almost half of the deaths occurred, before burying them alongside images of the victims, Reuters reported.

Peruvians carrying black flags also marched through the streets in the region of Puno, some shouting “The bloodshed will never be forgotten!”

Peru’s top prosecutor’s office launched an inquiry Tuesday into new President Dina Boluarte and senior cabinet ministers over deadly clashes that have swept the country following the ousting of Castillo.

Protesters are demanding the resignation of Boluarte, the dissolution of Congress, changes to the constitution and Castillo’s release.

The new government, however, won a vote of confidence in Congress by a wide margin Tuesday evening. A loss would have triggered a cabinet reshuffle and the resignation of Prime Minister Alberto Otárola.

The vote of confidence, a constitutional requirement after a new prime minister takes office, passed with 73 votes in favor, 43 against and six abstentions.

The inquiry comes after at least 18 people died since Monday night during demonstrations in the southern Puno region, including a Peruvian policeman who was burned to death by protesters.

Police confirmed to CNN Espanol Tuesday that Peruvian officer Jose Luis Soncco Quispe died on Monday night after being attacked by “unknown subjects” while patrolling in Puno.

“We regret the sensitive death of José Luis Soncco Quispe. We extend our condolences to his closest family and friends. Rest in peace, brother policeman!” Peruvian National Police wrote on Twitter.

A curfew will be in place from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. local time “to safeguard the life, integrity and freedom of citizens” following the conflicts in Puno, the Council of Ministers tweeted Tuesday.

The recent unrest has proved to be the worst violence in Peru since the 1990s when the country saw clashes between the state and rebel group Shining Path. That violence left 69,000 people dead or missing over a period of two decades, according to Reuters.

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World

Post-zero-Covid: What the return of Chinese tourists means for the global economy

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Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

In the years before Covid, China was the world’s most important source of international travelers. Its 155 million tourists spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars beyond its borders in 2019.

That largesse fell precipitously over the past three years as the country essentially closed its borders. But, as China prepares to reopen on Sunday, millions of tourists are poised to return to the world stage, raising hopes of a rebound for the global hospitality industry.

Although international travel may not return immediately to pre-pandemic levels, companies, industries and countries that rely on Chinese tourists will get a boost in 2023, according to analysts.

China averaged about 12 million outbound air passengers per month in 2019, but those numbers fell 95% during the Covid years, according to Steve Saxon, a partner in McKinsey’s Shenzhen office. He predicts that figure will recover to about 6 million per month by the summer, driven by the pent-up wanderlust of young, wealthy Chinese like Emmy Lu, who works for an advertising company in Beijing.

“I’m so happy [about the reopening]! ” Lu told CNN. “Because of the pandemic, I could only wander around the country for the past years. It was difficult.”

“It’s just that I’ve been stuck inside the country for a little too long. I’m really looking forward to the lifting of the restrictions, so that I can go somewhere for fun! ” the 30-year-old said, adding that she wanted to visit Japan and Europe the most.

As China announced last month it would no longer subject inbound travelers to quarantine starting January 8, including residents returning from trips abroad, searches for international flights and accommodations immediately hit a three-year high on Trip.com

(TCOM).

Bookings for overseas travel during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, which falls between January 21 and January 27 this year, have soared by 540% from a year ago, according to data from the Chinese travel site. Average spending per booking jumped 32%.

The top destinations are in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong. The United States and the United Kingdom also ranked among the top 10.

“The rapid buildup in … [bank] deposits over the past year suggests that households in China have accumulated significant cash holdings,” said Alex Loo, a macro strategist for TD Securities, adding that frequent lockdowns have likely led to restraints on household spending.

There could be “revenge spending” by Chinese consumers, mirroring what happened in many developed markets when they reopened early last year, he said.

That’s good news for many economies battered by the pandemic.

“We estimate that Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would benefit the most if China’s travel service imports were to return to 2019 levels,” said Goldman Sachs analysts。

Hong Kong — the world’s most visited city with just under 56 million arrivals in 2019, most of them from mainland China — could see an estimated 7.6% boost to its GDP as exports and tourism income increase, they said. Thailand’s GDP may be boosted by 2.9%, while Singapore would get a lift of 1.2%.

Elsewhere in the world, Cambodia, Mauritius, Malaysia, Taiwan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, South Korea and Philippines are also likely to benefit from the return of Chinese tourists, according to research by Capital Economics.

Hong Kong has suffered particularly acutely from the closure of its border with mainland China. The city’s pillar industries of tourism and real estate have been hit hard. The financial hub expects GDP to have contracted by 3.2% in 2022.

The city government announced Thursday that up to 60,000 people would be allowed to cross the border daily each way, starting Sunday.

Several other Southeast Asian countries reliant on tourism have kept entry rules relatively relaxed for Chinese tourists, despite the record Covid-19 outbreak that has swept through China in recent weeks. They include Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.

“This is one of the opportunities that we can accelerate economic recovery,” Thailand’s health minister said this week.

New Zealand has also waived testing requirements for Chinese visitors, who were the second largest source of tourist revenue for the country before the pandemic.

But other governments are more cautious. So far, nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea, have mandated testing.

The European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its members states to require a negative Covid test for visitors from China before arrival.

There is clearly “conflict” between the tourism authorities and the political and health officials in some countries, said Saxon, who leads McKinsey’s travel practice in Asia.

Airlines and airports have already blasted the EU’s recommendations for testing requirements.

The International Air Transport Association, the airline industry’s global lobby group, together with airports represented by ACI Europe as well as Airlines for Europe, issued a joint statement on Thursday, calling the EU move “regrettable” and “a knee-jerk reaction.”

But they welcomed the additional recommendation to test wastewater as a way of identifying new variants of the disease, saying it should be an alternative to testing passengers.

Besides restrictions, it will take time for international travel to fully rebound because many Chinese must renew their passports and apply for visas again, according to analysts.

Lu from Beijing said she was still considering her travel plans, taking into consideration the various testing requirements and the high price of flying.

“The restrictions are normal, because everyone wants to protect people in their own country,” she said. “I’ll wait and see if some policies will be eased.”

Liu Chaonan, a 24-year-old in Shenzhen, said she had initially wanted to go to the Philippines to celebrate the Chinese New Year, but didn’t have time to apply for the visa. So she switched to Thailand, which offers quick and easy electronic permits.

“Time is short and I need to leave in about 10 days. People may choose some visa-friendly places and countries to travel to,” she said, adding that she plans to learn scuba diving and wants to buy cosmetics. Her total budget for the trip could exceed 10,000 yuan ($1,460).

Saxon said he expected China’s outbound international travel to fully recover by the year end.

“Generally, individuals are pragmatic and countries will welcome Chinese tourists due to their spending power,” he said, adding that countries may remove restrictions quickly when the Covid situation improves in China.

“It will take time for international tourism to get going, but it will come rushing back, when it happens.”

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