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1969 Royal Nepal Airlines Douglas DC-3 crash

12 Jul 1969 · Hetauda area, Nepal

Douglas DC-3 · Controlled flight into terrain

From Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu, Nepal to Simara Airport, Nepal

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Event

Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
Event fatalities
35 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
0
InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
Unknown
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
Airline

Douglas DC-3

Aircraft type
Douglas DC-3
Category
Airplane · from aircraft type
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
9N-AAP
Onboard fatalities
35
Route
From Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu, NepalTo Simara Airport, Nepal

Approximate · Estimated position: Hetauda, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.

From the Wikipedia article

On 12 July 1969, a Royal Nepal Airlines Douglas DC-3 crashed en route from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu to Simara Airport; all 4 crew members and 31 passengers on board were killed, and the wreckage was eventually found in the Hetauda area of Nepal. The Nepalese government launched an investigation immediately after determining the coordinates of the wreckage.

Accident

The flight involved was a scheduled passenger flight operating between Kathmandu and Simara, with a cruising altitude of 7300 feet (2200 metres), and the route passed over the mountainous Hetauda area. While flying over Hetauda, because visibility was extremely low at the time, the captain failed to adjust the aircraft's altitude in time, causing the aircraft to strike a mountain, after which it caught fire and crashed; all 4 crew members and 31 passengers on board were killed. This was also the third flight accident of Royal Nepal Airlines (Nepal's only airline), and the most serious of the three.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Chinese Wikipedia article “1969年尼泊尔航空道格拉斯DC-3班机空难” (revision 83547121, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article

Sources

Chinese Wikipedia article: 1969年尼泊尔航空道格拉斯DC-3班机空难
Article
1969年尼泊尔航空道格拉斯DC-3班机空难
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
83547121 · 2024-07-25 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q60747805
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
Record
zh Wikipedia article "1969年尼泊尔航空道格拉斯DC-3班机空难" (page 6806828, revision 83547121), translated into English with AI assistance
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
Aircraft, operator and route
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
operator named as an airline in the infobox
Fatalities
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
  • Wikipedia · Facts from the Chinese Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.