KATHMANDU (PTI): Laboratory analyses of the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the Thai airbus which crashed here on July 31 killing 113 people on board, have indicated that the plane was proceeding normally until the crew encountered a fault while attempting to make the required flap selection prior to landing.

In a press release Aug.14, the  nine-member inquiry commission, constituted to go into the causes of the air crash, quoted the preliminary findings of the Lal analysis of the F.D.R. and the C.V.R, sent to Canada,

It said the crew did succeed in lowering the wing flaps, but they realized they were too close to the runway for landing and asked permission to tum southwest to   again. the plane received clearance to come around and turned to the right. But the tum continued past a Southerly direction and the aircraft Stopped its tam while heading north again,

As it headed north, the crew received an emergency warming from its navigation system that it Was  close to the “terrain” and instructions to “pull up,”

It appears that the crew had just initiated a climb when the aircraft hit the mountain,” the commission said. All 113 pa including 14 members of the crew, Crashed on a hill in Nuwakot district in Central Nepal on July 31.

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 28, 1992