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After Dipak Pokhrel perished in a mishap while piloting a small Yeti Airlines passenger plane in 2006, his widow Anju Khatiwada utilized the insurance payout to fund her own pilot training. Khatiwada was the co-pilot of the Yeti Airlines flight that crashed into a new airport in Pokhara, Nepal, on Sunday, killing all 72 people on board.
Monday, a spokesman for the airline confirmed Khatiwada’s death to multiple news outlets.
“She was flying the plane with an instructor pilot, which is the standard procedure of the airline,” an unnamed airline official told Reuters, adding that they personally knew Khatiwada. She had flown to Pokhara earlier and was always willing to assume any responsibility.
Khatiwada had often flown the busy tourist route between Kathmandu and Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal.
A rescue crew finds a victim’s body from the accident site of a Yeti Airlines-operated aircraft on January 16, 2023 in Pokhara, Nepal.
Kathiwada, according to Yeti Airlines spokesperson Pemba Sherpa, was a “skilled pilot” with a “friendly nature” who rose to the rank of captain after thousands of hours of flight time.
Sherpa told the Associated Press, “We have lost our best,”
Kathiwada’s remains were not identified among the ATR-72 turboprop aircraft’s destroyed wreckage.
It is currently unknown what caused the crash. A witness on the ground who captured video of the plane’s descent from his balcony reported seeing it fly low before abruptly diverting to the left and sinking.
“I was stunned to see that… I believed that after today’s crash, everything would be over here and that I would also perish “The Associated Press reported that Diwas Bohora said.
An Indian passenger’s frightening 90-second video showed himself and his pals enjoying the descent into Pokhara before a violent jolt dislodges the camera and immediately fills the frame with smoke and flames while passengers cry amid the commotion. The films appear to confirm reports that something caused the jet to crash without any prior warning.
A spokeswoman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority and Yeti Airlines stated that both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered from the crash site on Monday, which should assist investigators in determining the cause of the accident.
Nepal is home to some of the world’s tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, and flying is hazardous due to the rugged terrain and extreme weather fluctuations.
»Nepal disaster co-pilot lost her pilot husband in an earlier Yeti air crash«