Tara Air Flight 197

Tara Air Flight 197 was a scheduled domestic flight operated by Tara Air for parent company Yeti Airlines from Pokhara Airport to Jomsom Airport in Nepal. On 29 May 2022, the Twin Otter aircraft carrying 22 people (19 passengers and 3 crew members) departed at 09:55 NPT (04:10 UTC) and lost contact with air traffic controllers about 12 minutes later at 10:07 (04:22). The wreckage was located 20 hours later on a mountainside. All 22 passengers and crew were killed, and all 22 bodies were recovered. This was Tara Air's second deadly accident on this route, after Flight 193 in 2016.

Accident

On 29 May 2022, Tara Air's 9N-AET was scheduled for three flights on the Pokhara-Jomsom-Pokhara sector. Tara Air had also filed flight plans for two additional charter flights on the same sector. The weather at Jomsom airport in the early morning was cloudy with light rain due to which no flights were conducted since morning and most of the passengers of Tara Air and Summit Air were already at the airport. With the opening of Jomsom airport for operation at 9:06 am, Tara Air decided to operate the first scheduled flight. The flight was supposed to take off before another flight SMT 601 but the pilot in command was hesitant due to weather unfavorable for visual flights and critical weather around Lete and Tatopani which was reported by a pilot from another flight Summit Air's 9N-AKZ that took before it. In the cockpit voice recorder, it was observed that someone, either ground staff or some intimate passenger to the crew, advised strongly to the pilot to conduct the flight. Following the report from the pilot of 9N-AKZ, both flights started their engines. The pilot of Tara flight was still hesitant even after the engine start and delayed the taxi as he was not convinced about the weather report received from the preceding flight. In the meantime, SMT 601 lined up for departure to Jomson, and Tara Flight 197 finally lined up.

The aircraft took off from Pokhara at 9:55 am local time and was scheduled to land at Jomsom Airport at 10:15 am. The en-route weather provided by the previous flight 9N-AKZ was not the same. After the flight crossed Ghodepani, the pilot was not comfortable with the cloudy en-route weather and voiced his dissatisfaction about the behavior of other pilots who conducted visual flights in such unfavorable weather. During the continuous attempts of the crew to avoid the clouds with TAWS (Terrain Awareness Warning System) inhibited, it crashed into the rocky terrain at an altitude of 4050 m above sea level at Sanusare Mountain, Thasang Rural Municipality of Mustang district. Its last position was 14.26 km southwest of Jomson Airport. According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), it lost contact with air traffic controllers at 10:07 am, above Ghorepani, Myagdi District.