Nepal Plane Crash: Singapore's Transport Safety Investigation Bureau to Analyse Black Box

The investigation of Yeti Airlines flight 691 is still being conducted, with no major conclusion received yet. On January 15, the flight crashed into a gorge while it was on its final approach to the runway of the newly inaugurated Pokhara International Airport in Nepal. The crash was so tragic that all 72 people on board were killed in the crash. In fact, it is said to be the most horrific plane crash in Nepal in the last 30 years. Now, Nepal’s investigation authorities have requested Singapore’s Transport Ministry to receive the black box of the plane and analyse it to help with further investigation. 

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. 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. 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 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 was 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.

With inputs from PTI