Nepal plane crash: Singapore to analyse black boxes

Singapore’s Transport Ministry will analyse black boxes recovered from the crash site of Yeti Airlines flight 691 at the request of the investigation authorities in Nepal, officials said.

The flight smashed into a gorge on its final approach to the newly opened Pokhara International Airport on January 15, killing all 72 people on board. It was the country’s worst air crash in 30 years.

The Transport Ministry’s (MOT) Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will help retrieve and read the data from the plane’s flight recorders, said an MOT spokesperson in a statement on Thursday.

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The analysis will be carried out at TSIB’s flight recorder readout facility, which was set up in 2007.

“All investigation-related information, including the progress of investigations and the findings, will be handled by the Nepalese investigation authority,” The Straits Times reported, quoting the spokesperson.

Flight recorders, or black boxes, capture information about a flight such as instrument warnings and audio recordings, and help in piecing together events leading up to an incident.

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The Nepali investigation team will on Friday leave for Singapore with the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, according to a Washington Post report.

Examination of the black boxes is expected to take a week and will be free, The Kathmandu Post had said on Wednesday.

Singapore’s examination of the boxes is under an MOT and Nepal’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation memorandum of understanding to cooperate on aircraft accident investigations signed in February 2020.

“The MOU covers the use of investigation facilities and equipment, including the flight recorder readout facility, training, and observer attachments,” said the MOT spokesman.