Episode 25 - Two mountains and four CFITs: Air India, Pakistan & Thai Airlines

Plane Crash Diaries

This is episode 25 – and I’m going to take a closer look at the Pakistan international Airlines Crash in Katmandu in 1992 along with a Thai Airlines accident there a few week earlier. The Pakistan crash comes via a suggestion by a listener called Herman. Thanks for the chat the other evening and also a big thank you for your great suggestion Herman. But before then we’ll probe two other accidents in the Alps involving Air India planes – and they’re full of mystery and surprises – and a box full of gemstones. It’s unique that two aircraft from the same airline hit the same place – particularly in a completely different continent to their place of origin but that is what happened to Air India 101 a Boeing 707-437 nicknamed Kanchenjunga registration VT-DMN which hit the 15700 foot high Mont Blanc in 1966. The other was Air India Flight 245 which crashed roughly in the same place but years before in 1950. Then the Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268 - an Airbus A300, registration AP-BCP, which crashed while approaching Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport on 28 September 1992. The final accident in this end of year bumper edition was the Thai Airways International Flight 311 which crashed north of Kathmandu and to be quite blunt this one was categorically one of pilot error.