Plane Crash in Nepal - Some Stories
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Copyright 1992 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
October 1, 1992
SECTION: News
LENGTH: 414 words
HEADLINE: PIA deny report about pilot error
DATELINE: KARACHI
BODY:
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) here Thursday challenged reports
attributing pilot error as the cause of its Airbus crash near Kathmandu which
killed all 167 aboard.
"Pilot error was never mentioned in the transcript of the Nepalese Home
Minister Sher Bahadur Dupa nor did he say anything of this sort during a
briefing at which PIA's managing director and other senior officials were
present," said Khalid Butt, the head of the airline's public relations here.
Before briefing Kathmandu-based diplomats, Dupa had told AFP on Wednesday
that the "pilot made a big blunder," adding "the aircraft was flying at a lower
level than the prescribed height while it was at a distnce of 10 nautical miles
from Kathmandu."
Dupa had also said "cloud and mist" south of Kathmandu was another reason
which led to the crash Monday.
He rejected allegations that the accident, the second Airbus crash near
Kathmandu since July 31, was due to a lack of safety equipment there.
Nepal's chief aircrash investigator, R. Suman, who also looked into the
July 31 crash of a Thai Airways Airbus that killed 113 people, said in Kathmandu
Thursday that "only the Flight Digital Data Recorder (FDDR or black box) can say
whether it was cockpit error or a failure which caused it to come down."
But in Karachi a PIA spokesman pointed out that the Nepalese authorities
have still not made an official statement on the Thai crash.
Pilot error was a "misdiagnosis since the statement does not refer to the
inadequate aerodrome facilities during the approach segments at Kathmandu," said
a spokesman of the Pakistan Airline Pilots Association (PALPA).
Stunned by the two airbus-disasters, Nepalese authorities have since said
they are installing new warning systems on the steep and cloud-shrouded
mountains on the southern approach to Kathmandu airport.
Described by pilots as a "tricky" landing, Kathmandu's Tribhuwan airport
handles about 70 commerical flights, 20 of them international, daily on its
single runway. Copyright 1992 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
October 1, 1992
SECTION: News
LENGTH: 840 words
HEADLINE: PIA brings in 270 relatives of A-300 crash victims, black box hunt on
DATELINE: KATHMANDU
BODY:
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Thursday flew in 270 relatives of the
167 people killed when one of its planes crashed just south of here four days
ago to help identify bodies retrieved from the disaster site.
The distraught relatives flew in as experts from Aerospatiale, one of the
partners of the French-led European Airbus consortium, joined a Nepalese hunt
for the crashed A-300's key black box Thursday in the wreckage atop a mountain.
"The black box (Flight Digital Data Recorder, FDDR) is still missing," said
a Nepalese official as the ongoing search ended late Thursday in Bhatti Danda,
the crash site 16 kilometres (10 miles) south of Kathmandu.
"Only the FDDR can say whether it was cockpit error or a failure which
caused it to come down," Nepal's chief aircrash investigator R. Suman told an
AFP reporter at the site of the crash.
The searchers so far have found the cockpit voice recorder and the black
boxe's casing from the wreckage.
They retrieved 14 more bodies Thursday bringing to 146 the number of corpses
found at Bhatti Danda, an 8,250 foot (2,514 metre) high mountain, and sent them
to U.S.- and British-run facilities for visiting relatives to identify.
Only seven Pakistanis and 13 Nepalese victims have so far have been
identified, officials said, adding that the search for the remaining 21 bodies
and the black box would resume Friday.
A PIA spokesman here said 90 relatives of those killed came aboard a
chartered PIA Boeing 737 while the rest were ferried here on a scheduled PIA
flight by the airline free of charge.
Passengers aboard the chartered Boeing included 48 Britons, 12 Italians, 10
Germans and some Pakistanis. In the other PIA flight 35 relatives of 30
Spaniards
who perished were among the other visitors.
"We had planned to keep the relatives here for three days at our cost, but
now we think we would extend their stay because of problems," said the PIA
spokesman, adding the grotesquely burned bodies were impossible to identify.
PIA has also hired an international agency to match blood groups, tissue or
teeth to speed up identifications of those killed.
Relatives were shocked Thursday when some of them visited a facility where
parts of human bodies were shown to them for identification. "One woman fainted
and another went into bad shock," said one witness.
"If the relatives agree then we could organise cremations or burials here,
or we can ship their dead to wherever they desire," said PIA's Nepal sector
chief Javed Kishore.
"Most bodies are in terrible condition, but we do not want to discourage the
relatives," he said. Only 20 percent of the bodies were not dismembered when the
plane flew head-on into a Bhatti Danda cliff, the second such disaster in less
than two months in Nepal.
A Thai International Airbus slammed into another mountain July 31 killing
all 113 people on board in the first major air disaster in Nepal in several
years.
Javed meanwhile blamed Monday's crash on the lack of modern equipment at
Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport.
He said the airport had no means to communicate with incoming planes or
other modern equipment which ensure safe landings. "The plane was in perfect
condition," he added.
Nepal, which blames Monday's PIA crash on pilot error, plans to install
radars to help guide planes through the country's mountainous terrain.
Meanwhile PIA's Nepal sector chief, Kishore Javed blamed the lack of
modern facilities at Kathmandu airport for the crash saying the plane had no
flaws and the pilot was experienced and had landed there before.
The airport had no facilities to guide incoming flights, he said, adding "it
is not on a modern footing. Facilities which should be in an airport are not
here."
"The air traffic controller, the briefing room and other comunication
systems" were out of date, Javed said, adding the plane was in "perfect
condition" when it took off.
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Kyodo News Service
Japan Economic Newswire
OCTOBER 1, 1992, THURSDAY
LENGTH: 161 words
HEADLINE: Technical Fault, Pilot Error Led to Thai Air Crash
DATELINE: KATHMANDU, Oct. 1 Kyodo
BODY:
A high-level Nepalese commission has ruled that technical malfunction,
combined with pilot error, caused the fatal crash of a Thai Airways Airbus in
Kathmandu on July 31, a Nepalese newspaper reported.
The jetliner crashed into a foothill north of Kathmandu, killing all 113
persons on board.
The weekly Suruchi, quoting sources at the commission, reported that as the
pilot approached Kathmandu Airport he attempted twice to release the wing flaps,
but both times failed due to mechanical malfunction.
The findings were printed in a special addition devoted to last Monday's
crash of a Pakistan Airlines plane. The Nepali-language weekly is considered to
have close connections with the office of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala.
The commission's findings also reveal that the commander of the airbus
overlooked computer indications showing the plane was headed north into the
mountains after it passed over Kathmandu airport, the weekly said.
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The New York Times Company: Abstracts
TITL: PAKISTANI AIRBUS HAD HISTORY OF FAULTS, REPORTS SAY
REFR: JOURNAL OF COMMERCE Section B; Page 2, Column 1 JOURNAL-CODE JCM
DATE: October 1, 1992, Thursday
ABST: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 that crashed in Nepal
reportedly had history of technical problems; airline source says plane's
weather radars had been malfunctioning since August (S)
DESC: AIRLINES AND AIRPLANES; ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY; AIRBUS A300 AIRPLANE
COMP: PAKISTAN INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES
______________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The Press Association Limited
Press Association Newsfile
October 1, 1992, Thursday
Correction Appended
SECTION: HOME NEWS
LENGTH: 691 words
HEADLINE: AIR CRASH RELATIVES PREPARE TO IDENTIFY VICTIMS
BYLINE: Tim Moynihan, Press Association
KEYWORD:
AIR; Crash
BODY:
Relatives of Britons killed in the Nepal air crash were tonight preparing
themselves for the ordeal of helping to identify their loved ones. Thirty-eight
Britons are now known to have been among among the 167 people who died when the
Pakistan International Airways airbus crashed into a hillside on its approach to
Kathmandu airport. The latest victim was today named as Cathy Statham, 25, a
trainee solicitor from Maunby, North Yorkshire. She was the only child of North
Yorks Moors National Park's senior official Derek Statham and was at the start
of a year off work to see the world. Few of the 47 relatives and friends who
arrived in Kathmandu today are expected to see the mostly unrecognisable bodies
recovered from Monday's disaster. They will have interviews with British
undertakers supervising identification to establish details about their loved
ones using photographs and dental records. "We need to determine how many want
to see bodies. We wish they wouldn't," a British Embassy spokesman said. "Only
one has expressed any desire to do so, and in fact has seen some, at the airport
today. "The rest are relieved to find there is no duty on them to go and look
at bodies. "They are in a distressing state, with severe burns, they suffered
rather horrible damage." One hundred and forty bodies have been recovered so
far, the embassy spokesman said. They were taken to the airport then on to one
of two cold storage facilities at the American Embassy, following yesterday's
row over treatment of the bodies. Hundreds of people had queued to view the
remains laid out in rows on strips of black plastic in a tent at the airport.
The spokesman said the relatives were staying in two hotels. Earlier today they
attended two briefings, one with the airline and one with Armed Forces Minister
Archie Hamilton who assured them that everything would be done to bring the
victims' bodies home. "They have had a 14-hour flight and are suffering from
trauma and grief. One or two have been breaking down openly," added the
spokesman. Members of the British community had been helping, though, chatting
supportively to them over tea during the day. Some wanted to go to the crash
scene during their visit, which is expected to last about five days, to be able
to lay wreaths at the spot where their loved ones died, while some did not, he
said. "It is a matter for the Nepalese government to determine whether that
sort of exercise will be available," the spokesman said. The relatives were
joined on Wednesday's PIA flight by two officials of Lloyd's of London which had
insured the plane for L20.1 million.
Gurkha soldiers, whom Mr Hamilton was visiting, have joined local volunteers
in transporting remains from the crash site. They are also searching for the
black box flight recorder which will provide vital information as to why the
plane was flying too low. Passports and papers are being retained by the
authorities to aid forensic examination to try to name the dead. A British
Embassy spokesman said: "They (the relatives) are being briefed by our staff.
They are being discouraged from attempting to view the remains." More bodies
were recovered today but the exact number will not be known until later.
Embassy officials acted yesterday after the "peepshow" row moving a number of
the remains to a refrigerated area at the American Embassy on the advice of
British undertakers supervising scientific identification. The relatives left
Britain yesterday afternoon. Also on board the PIA flight were two officials of
Lloyd's of London which had insured the plane for L20.1 million. A spokesman
said: "They will be making a routine inspection of the wreckage."
Meanwhile, the 28th British victim was named as Cathy Statham, 25, a trainee
solicitor from Maunby, North Yorkshire. She was the only child of North York
Moors National Park's senior official Derek Statham. Miss Statham had taken a
year off from her work and was starting a trip to see the world. Her father
said: "She planned to reach New Zealand where she would be joined by her mother.
We had been planning the trip with her."
CORRECTION-DATE: October 1, 1992, Thursday
CORRECTION:
,timed about 1838, read in second par..."A total of 37 Britons were among the
167 people who died ...".... and in third par read...."The latest victim to be
named was Cathy Statham, 25..." (making clear 37 and not 38 Britons died and
that Miss Statham is the latest victim to be named).
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times
October 1, 1992, Thursday
SECTION: Home news
LENGTH: 555 words
HEADLINE: 'Peep-show' of air crash bodies provokes outrage
BYLINE: By Ray Clancy
BODY:
RELATIVES and friends of the Britons killed in the Pakistan airbus crash
last night began their journey to Kathmandu amid a row over the gruesome manner
in which the Nepalese authorities have displayed fragments of bodies and
personal effects at the airport.
British embassy officials criticised the arrangements in Kathmandu as being
no more than ''a grotesque peep-show'' and they removed bodies from an open tent
rather than leave them in full public view.
British High Commission staff have taken the extraordinary step of borrowing
a refrigerated lorry and taking bodies from the tent. Some are now in a cold
storage room at the United States embassy as officials try to ease the
difficulties for the British relatives.
Thirty-nine close relatives and eight friends of those who died boarded a
Pakistan International Airways flight at Heathrow airport to Karachi and are
expected to arrive on a connecting flight at Kathmandu today. Some were visibly
upset, not only by the process of travelling to identify loved ones but also at
having to make the same journey.
Diplomats in Nepal have been working behind the scenes to prepare for the
arrival of the relatives but a cultural divide has led to accusations that the
Nepalese have been uncaring by allowing hundreds of people to queue and stare at
the badly burnt remains of the 167 people who died.
In Nepal one British embassy official, who did not want to be identified,
said the manner in which fragments had been laid out on black plastic sheets in
a tent at the airport was beyond belief. ''There is a grotesque peep-show in
there. They are allowing anyone to go in and look at the bodies,'' the official
said. ''A thousand people are queuing to see. How can all of them be relatives?
No one is checking,'' he added.
Pakistan International Airlines has hired Kenyon Emergency Services, a
British firm of undertakers, to oversee the identification and repatriation of
the remains. But so far advice from the company appears to have been ignored.
Phillip Lewis, an executive director from KES, has told Sher Bahadur Deupa,
the Nepalese home minister, that the bodies should be taken to a mortuary as
quickly as possible. However, the minister said he had to consider requests from
other relatives who want to see the remains.
''We don't want to put the bodies on display but at the same time we have to
recognise the feelings of the families. Until they see the dead bodies they are
not satisfied,'' Mr Deupa said. A group of relatives from Pakistan has already
complained about some bodies being removed as seeing the remains is regarded as
an important part of the grieving process.
Mr Lewis said: ''The methods we are using are extremely scientific,
extremely precise. It would serve no good at all for the relative to visually
identify the bodies. We would prefer that the remains were stored and not
disturbed further until we have had a chance to examine them.''
Nepalese rescue workers said they were intensifying the hunt for the crucial
''black box'' recorder, which monitors details of the aircraft's flight. The
recorder had mistakenly been reported found among the debris on Tuesday. The
cockpit voice recorder, which monitors comments by the aircraft crew, was found
on Tuesday.
TERMS:
Himalayan air crash
___________________________________________________________________
Proprietary to the United Press International 1992
October 1, 1992, Thursday, BC cycle
SECTION: International
LENGTH: 340 words
HEADLINE: Relatives flown to identify bodies in plane crash
BYLINE: BY BHOLA RANA
DATELINE: KATMANDU, Nepal
KEYWORD: NEPAL -CRASH
BODY:
A special Pakistan International Airlines plane flew 150 relatives from
Karachi to Katmandu Thursday for identification of the victims of Monday's
crash, while rescue officials continued searching for the flight data recorder
of the crashed plane.
Rescue officials Wednesday found the cover of the flight data recorder, but
not the recorder itself, which could give vital clues to the cause of the crash
which killed 167 people Monday, officals of the Home Ministry and the Department
of Civil Aviation said.
''It will be too early to say what caused the crash. Anything may have
happened,'' said Lalit Shah, director-general of the Department of Civil
Aviation.
Four crew members, three hostesses and one steward were identified Thursday
afternoon, bringing to seven the number of Pakistani crew members identified so
far, said an official from the Pakistani Embassy at the command post at Katmandu
International Airport.
A dozen Nepalis and Pakistanis have now been identified, according to
officials.
Relatives from countries other than Nepal and Pakistan were not present at
the identification, which was conducted by relatives recognizing rings, clothes,
shoes and chains.
So far 135 bodies have been flown to Katmandu for identification and some
remains are still at the site, said Purusottam Bhattarai of the Home Ministry.
''The bodies are being displayed because of the pressure of relatives,''
Bhattarai said.
''It serves no purpose to view the bodies because the injuries are
extensive,'' Philip Lewis of the Kenyan Emergency Service -- an organization of
forensic experts -- told diplomats and Home Ministry officails at a special
briefing Wednesday.
The father of a PIA air hostess wailed and collapsed as he recognised his
daughter from bodies and remains of 55 victims placed at the airport for
identification.
The bodies were flown to the capital by helicopter Wednesday evening and
placed at different refrigerated units in the city befor being brought to the
airport.
____________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
September 30, 1992
SECTION: News
LENGTH: 654 words
HEADLINE: Mountains crowd path to Nepal's main airport
DATELINE: KATHMANDU
BODY:
Nepal, stunned by two air disasters in less than two months, plans to
install new warning systems on the steep and cloud-shrouded mountains crowding
the southern approach to Kathmandu airport.
Officials said the move is the first phase of an action plan to reduce
flight risks, but the ultimate answer would be to build a new international
airport on the plains bordering India, a project to be submitted to the
authorities soon.
The plans have been given a new urgency following Monday's crash of a
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Airbus as it prepared to land at Tribhuvan
International Airport (TIA), killing all 167 people aboard.
On July 31 a Thai International Airbus slammed into another hill, killing
its 113 passengers and crew.
TIA handles up to 70 commercial flights daily, 20 of them international, on
its single 10,000-feet (3,300-metre) runway, and while it is approved by the
International Civil Aviation Organisation as safe the control tower has no
radar.
The airport, which handles 264,000 passengers annually, possesses only a
high-frequency radio beacon for pilots to home on and an Instrument Landing
System (ILS) to keep them in line with the runway on the final approach.
Official sources Wednesday said the government would set up the first of the
low-frequency radar warning devices on the southern hill of Phul Choki, which is
9,071 feet (2,765 metres) high and is directly in the path of incoming planes.
It would also install a device on the nearby 8,250-feet high (2,514-metre)
Bhatti Danda, where the PIA Airbus crashed and another on Shivpuri, a
mist-covered 7,948 feet (2,423 metre) high mountain to the west of Kathmandu.
Four or five mountains besides Bhatti Danda, measuring between 7,434 feet
(2,266 metres) and 7,184 feet (2,189 metres), crowd the southern rim and they
too have to be "activated," the officials said.
Constant emissions from the radars will be picked up on the ILS receivers of
incoming planes to alert them to the presence and location of the mountains.
It was not known when the devices would be set up, but reports say Japan
iskeen to help Nepal with aviation technology if Kathmandu makes a request.
Pilots of several international networks say that "experience, skill and a
bit of luck" is needed for the rapid descent through the mountains for a landing
on TIA's runway.
"It is one of the most difficult landings," said a senior Royal Nepal
Airlines pilot Tuesday.
After overflying the radio beacon in Simra, 64 kilometres (40 miles) due
south of Kathmandu, aircraft have to keep due north, rapidly losing altitude
from a distance of 6.4 kilometres (four miles) after negotiating the jagged
Shivalik hills, he said.
A Chinese flight from Tibet is the only international commercial flight
which does not use this route. The Boeing 707 makes a screaming descent from the
northeast, banking over the town of Patan before entering on the approach.
Most domestic pilots fly according to Visual Flight Rules, using their eyes
instead of their instruments, and thus their flight patterns differ.
Outgoing planes take off in the opposite direction and head west for New
Delhi or beyond, or east for Bangkok.
___________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
September 30, 1992
SECTION: News
LENGTH: 800 words
HEADLINE: Rains batter Airbus experts at crash site in Nepal
DATELINE: KATHMANDU
BODY:
Rains slowed operations Wednesday to fly out the bodies of those killed when
a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Airbus slammed into a hill near here
Monday with 167 people on board, the army said.
Bad weather also hampered investigations launched Wednesday by experts from
the French Aerospatiale company at the disaster site 16 kilometres (10 miles)
south of Kathmandu, it said.
Experts from PIA and the French and Pakistani civil aviation departments
have also arrived here to investigate the crash of the Airbus A-300, the second
such disaster in two months in Kathmandu, other Nepalese officials said.
A Thai International A-300 slammed into another mountain northwest of
Kathmandu July 31 killing all 113 people on board. The cause of that disaster
has yet to be made public.
The wreckage of PIA flight PK268 from Karachi to Nepal is perched
precariously on the cliffs of the 8,250-feet (2,514-metre) high Bhatti Danda.
Pieces of human bodies and baggage are littered along a narrow ledge while
some of the corpses are stuck on top of the mountain, rescuers said.
The Nepalese army personnel said they were still hunting Wednesday for the
plane's key digital data recorder, or black box, which records electronic and
mechanical information on the performance of the plane.
The rescuers have already handed over the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder
retrieved Tuesday to the experts. The black box would have to go to a laboratory
in the West for examination.
Pilots and local experts say pilot error or inadequate navigation aids at
Kathmandu airport could have caused the crash. But press reports in Pakistan
Wednesday, denied by PIA, alleged that the Airbus had experienced radar trouble
several times.
The army has officially denied reports that the A-300 caught fire in mid-air
before falling, while PIA officials here could not immediately verify other
reports that it was the pilot's first flight into Kathmandu.
Rescuers said 75 of the 167 bodies had been retrieved so far and 61 of them
had been flown back to Kathmandu by military helicopters.
Police were keeping the badly charred corpses on slabs of ice to prevent
further decomposition.
PIA's list of the nationalities of those killed published Tuesday included
36 Britons, 30 Pakistanis including 19 PIA personnel, 30 Nepalese, two
Canadians, 10 Italians, 30 Spaniards, 14 Dutch, two French, two Swiss, three
Americans, one Japanese, four Bangladeshis, two of unknown origin and one infant
whose nationality was not given.
Officials Wednesday identified the two French as Gerard Gullard and B.
Charpen, a woman, and said one of the Pakistanis killed was Rafee Parukhi, a PIA
ground engineer.
The plane's 115 passengers included at least seven off-duty PIA personnel in
addition to the duty crew of 12.
Rescue workers also found a loaded pistol in the wreckage of the plane but
ruled out initial suspicions that it could have been part of a hijacker's
baggage.
Airport Deputy Manager Narendra Ghimre said the weapon possibly belonged to
a Pakistani anti-hijacking commando travelling unlisted in the PIA A-300.
"PIA informs us in advance of the presence of three or four armed commandos
on their flights," said Ghimre, adding that they never disembark from the planes
in Kathmandu.
The official could not say if PIA had informed TIA of the presence of any
anti-hijacking squad on PK286.
Rescuers were also puzzled Wednesday to find a 168th body in the debris but
later said it was that of a Nepalese worker for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who had died in Islamabad September 25 of
AIDS believed contracted in Somalia.
The body of Ajay Krishna Tuladhar, 45, was being accompanied home by his
wife, daughter and sister-in-law for cremation, PIA officials said.
______________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Newspaper Publishing PLC
The Independent
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: HOME NEWS PAGE; Page 3
LENGTH: 819 words
HEADLINE: Air crash victims who planned adventure
BYLINE: By CHRISTIAN WOLMAR
BODY:
A POET, two women who had just qualified as psychologists, a hospital
consultant and four instructors from the National Mountaineering Centre were
among the victims of Monday's Kathmandu air disaster. A full list of British
victims has not been issued but it is now thought that 36 or 37 Britons were
killed in the crash.
Dominic Sasse, 37, a poet with two volumes of his work published, was
working on a third which may have been lost on the flight. His wife, Mary, who
has two children, said her husband was planning to spend 10 weeks at their lodge
in Laxmi. She said: ''We set the lodge up five years ago. My husband's father
was in the Gurkhas but he never got to see Nepal because it was closed until
the end of 1953. They had an unspoken pact to open a lodge in Nepal, but his
father died before they got to go out there.''
Kate White, 26, and Louise Peat, 32, were on a trip to celebrate finishing
seven years of study to qualify as clinical psychologists. They had just
completed their Masters' degrees at Leicester University.
Dr Alison Gourdie, 34, who appeared on the documentary Jimmy's when she
worked as a casualty department registrar at St James' Hospital in Leeds, was
another victim. Dr Gourdie booked her holiday to the Himalayas to celebrate her
first senior appointment as consultant to the casualty department of Stirling
Royal Infirmary, Scotland, where she began work in April.
A mountain guide, Mick Hardwick, 33, of Tregarth, near Bangor; his wife Sue,
28, a part-time instructor; another guide, Dave Harries, 33; and a part-time
instructor, Alison Cope, 28, set off at the weekend on a two-month trekking and
mountaineering expedition to Nepal. The chief instructor of the National
Mountaineering Centre, Nick Banks, said it was a ''massive loss'' to British
mountaineering. Mr Hardwick and Mr Harries were planning to make an ascent of
the south face of Annapurna.
Also a victim was an outdoor pursuits teacher, Brian Rollins, a friend of Mr
Harries, who spent much of his time working with disabled young people. His
girlfriend, Sandie Goodyer, had been due to travel with him but pulled out due
to illness. Mr Rollins, a lecturer at Arden College in Northenden, Greater
Manchester, was one of a group flying out to climb the 18,045- feet (5,500
metres) Tharpu Chuli.
The husband of Laura Strutt, 76, who had visited Nepal in each of the past
five years and died in the disaster, said that he had been told that she was
not on the flight. John Strutt, 77, who lives in Clwyd, said: ''I was shocked
when I heard about the crash and I phoned the airline. Originally they said she
was not on the flight that had crashed and I was relieved. Then they phoned back
to say that she was.''
Among the dead were the Wilkins family, who were returning to Nepal for a
second three-year stint after a year in Britain. Andrew Wilkins, 38, was an
engineer and geologist who was seconded to the United Mission to Nepal to work
for the Butwal Power Company.Deborah Leon, 32, was women's oficer for the
Transport and General Workers' Union in Newcastle. Her colleagues described her
as a caring person who fought for the underdog.
Pakistani International Airlines' general manager in London, Faqirullah Jan,
said about 30 British relatives would travel on a scheduled flight leaving
Heathrow today for Karachi, and be taken on to Kathmandu. All bodies will be
flown home by the airline. Mr Jan said the airline could not issue names as
relatives had asked for information to be kept confidential.
A full list of British victims has not been issued but 35 people, one of
whom is thought to have been a New Zealander, bought tickets in Britain and a
further two are thought to have joined the flight at Karachi. British victims
known so far: Andrew, 38, and Helen Wilkins, 36, missionaries, and children,
Hannah, 10, Naomi, 8, and Simeon, 6, originally from Peterborough; Sharon Duhig,
28, ski-instructor, west London, and Chris Budgett, 26, Lyme Regis, Dorset; Mick
Hardwick, 33, Sue Hardwick, 28, Dave Harries, 33, Alison Cope, 28, all
instructors with National Mountaineering Centre, Snowdonia; Brian Rollins, 40,
outdoor pursuits teacher, Manchester; Laura Strutt 76, Chirk, Clwyd; Deborah
Leon 32, union officer, Newcastle upon Tyne; Hamdi al- Menshawy, 27, and Sharon
Henson, 25, jeweller; Kate White, 26, Taunton, Somerset, and Louise Peate, 32,
Eastbourne, East Sussex, psychologists; Alison Gourdie, 34 hospital consultant,
Leeds; Dudley Brown, 39, builder; Dominic Sasse, 37, poet, Shropshire; Pam
Muttram, 28, community worker, Manchester; Mark Miller, 31, travel company
director, and Victor Radvils, 27, both from Sheffield; Peter Jones, 34, computer
engineer, and wife Caroline 29, building society clerk, Harrogate, North
Yorkshire; Steve Proctor, 32, council surveyor, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Sasse obituary, page 29
(Photographs omitted)
_____________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Newspaper Publishing PLC
The Independent
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: GAZETTE PAGE; Page 29
LENGTH: 473 words
HEADLINE: Obituary: Dominic Sasse
BYLINE: By WILLIAM SIEGHART
BODY:
Dominic Sasse, poet, writer, traveller, born Crawley Down Sussex 11 July
1955, married 1978 Mary Macauley , died Kathmandu 28 September 1992.
THE AIRBUS that crashed into a Nepali mountain on Monday robbed us of one of
our most talented young romantic poets, Dominic Sasse. He had had two
collections of his work published, Broken China (1986), and The Jousting Meadow,
published by my firm, Forward Publishing, in 1989. He also contributed to many
poetry magazines and journals all over the world from Norway to Africa. For the
last two years he had been working with me on his third collection. Tragically
we believe that the only copy was lost with him.
A proud and passionate man, Dominic Sasse was very much the image of a
romantic poet. Big in physique and spirit, often contentious and forceful in his
opinions, he left a lasting impression on everyone he met. His main concern was
that people live truthfully both to themselves and to others. He wouldn't
tolerate ''bullshit'' in any form and was never shy of telling people so. He
wrote most of all about love, a subject that he felt was going out of fashion in
poetry.
At times a despairing romantic, he unashamedly went to the heart of the
human condition. Described as ''a remarkable poet'' by Peter Levi and a poet of
''immaculate sentiments'' by the late George Barker, he was compared by one
critic for his best-known poem, ''A Song for the Synod'', to the young Tennyson:
Our Father who fashioned
the dew to tremble,
the wind to stir,
the sea to rise and fall,
forgive us our trespasses,
as we roam these urban pastures.
Our Father who lent us breath,
sight and song,
yet also fearful passion,
protect us from undue emotion,
flatter not our vanity,
for simple is our human nature.
Our Father who art in exile,
hallowed once was your name,
now cited in vain,
the cause of sectarian murder.
You have led us into Temptation
and left us unable to resist.
Born in Sussex, the son of a Gurkha army officer who himself never went to
Nepal, Dominic Sasse went through a relatively brief education, leaving
Cranleigh at 15 and then rejecting his place at Farnham Art College for the open
road. Like many poets, he found numerous ways to make a living; from landscape
gardening, one of his great passions, to driving an old London taxi around
Turkey and Greece, where he later lived and wrote his first collection of
poetry. A great traveller, he spent the last five years of his life founding a
visitor's lodge in the small village of Birethanti high in the Himalayas, his
destination when his plane went down. Again, he had become a larger-than-life
figure there, and he and his wife Mary provided hope, income and often
much-needed medical welfare. Without him that small community will be desolate.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Reuters, Limited
The Reuter Library Report
September 30, 1992, Wednesday, BC cycle
LENGTH: 726 words
HEADLINE: Row erupts over Nepal air crash victims
BYLINE: By Bill Tarrant
DATELINE: KATHMANDU, Sept 30
KEYWORD:
NEPAL -PLANE
BODY:
A row erupted in Nepal on Wednesday over what diplomats called ''a
grotesque peepshow'' of the badly burned and mangled victims of the Pakistan
International Airlines (PIA) crash that killed 167 people.
''There is a grotesque peepshow in there,'' said a British High Commission
(Embassy) official, gesturing towards a tent erected at Kathmandu airport where
the mostly unrecognisable remains are laid out in rows on strips of black
plastic.
''They're allowing anyone to go in and look at the bodies and a lot of them
are blackened blobs of meat,''said the angry official, who asked not to be
identified.
''A thousand people queued up to see these bodies. How many of them were
relatives? No one is checking,'' he said.
Passengers included 36 Britons, 30 Spaniards, 14 Dutch, 14 other Europeans,
30 Nepalis, 11 Pakistanis, four Bangladeshis, three Americans, two Canadians,
one Japanese, one New Zealander, two unknown and a crew of 19 Pakistanis, PIA
said.
A British High Commission refrigerator truck took away most of the bodies
retrieved so far for cold storage at the U.S. embassy in Kathmandu on Tuesday
night.
''It was a body snatch under cover of darkness,'' said one British High
Commission source.
On Wednesday afternoon, only about six sets of remains were in the airport
tent, from which an overpowering stench of death emanated. Rescue workers have
brought more than 50 back.
The PIA Airbus A300 ploughed into a hillside 26 km (16 miles) south of
Kathmandu in a driving rainstorm on Monday. There were no surviviors of the
second Airbus crash near Kathmandu in bad weather in two months.
On July 31, a Thai Airways Airbus A310-300 flew into a high Himalayan ridge
north of Kathmandu, killing all 113 aboard.
Nepali rescue workers said they were intensifying the hunt for the crucial
''black box'' flight recorder, which monitors details of the plane's flight. The
recorder had mistakenly been reported found among the debris on Tuesday.
The cockpit voice recorder, which monitors comments by the aircraft crew, was
found on Tuesday.
Nepali civil aviation officials say the Pakistani pilot was 1,500 feet (450
metres) below his prescribed flight path as he came in to land at Kathmandu, but
why remains a mystery.
Pakistani newspapers quoted PIA sources on Wednesday as saying the crashed
plane had a history of technical problems, including weather radars that had
been malfunctioning since mid-August.
''This is most speculative and not based on facts,'' PIA spokesman Khalid
Butt told Reuters in Islamabad.
PIA hired Kenyon Emergency Services, a British undertakers firm, to identify
the bodies. Its executive director, Phillip Lewis, pleaded with Nepali Home
(interior) Minister Sher Bahadur Deupa to send the bodies directly to a
mortuary.
''The methods we are using are extremely scientific, extremely precise,'' he
told Deupa at a meeting also attended by diplomats and journalists.
''It would serve no good at all for the relatives to visually identify the
bodies. It is a very distressing process,'' he said. ''We would prefer that the
bodies be immediately stored and not examined until we have a chance to examine
them.''
Deupa was noncommittal. ''We don't want to put the bodies on display, but at
the same time we have to recognise the feelings of the families,'' he said.
''Unless and until they see the dead bodies, they are not satisfied.''
Members of a group of 14 Pakistanis who were flown into Kathmandu on Tuesday
afternoon backed that view. They were visibly upset about the lack of bodies to
view after the British refrigerator truck took most of them away.
''Basically, we've not been able to see the bodies,'' said Azim ul-Haq of
Karachi, whose father was one of the victims.
''We don't know where the bodies are and it seems the authorities don't
either. They say the bodies are coming and then they say the bodies are not
coming.''
Lewis said an important part of the identification process was to interview
relatives of the victims who can provide vital clues. Relatives of many of the
European and American victims were due to begin arriving in Kathmandu on
Wednesday.
Kenyon was also hired to identify the victims of the Thai Airways crash, from
which only one recognisable torso was recovered. Lewis said his pathologists had
identified seven of the 91 sets of remains retrieved.
______________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Reuters, Limited
The Reuter Library Report
September 30, 1992, Wednesday, BC cycle
LENGTH: 359 words
HEADLINE: Crashed airbus had history of faults-newspapers
DATELINE: ISLAMABAD, Sept 30
KEYWORD:
NEPAL -PLANE-PAKISTAN
BODY:
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Airbus A-300 that crashed in
Nepal on Monday killing all 167 people on board had a history of technical
problems, local newspapers said.
The News quoted airline sources on Wednesday as saying the aircraft's weather
radars had been malfunctioning since mid-August.
''Recently while passing through a thunderstorm, the plane lost both radars
and had to be guided by some other PIA planes in the vicinity whose pilots
helped out using their radars,'' the newspaper quoted an unidentified veteran
PIA pilot as saying.
The problem had been reported several times by flight deck crews but the log
book showed ground checks found the system was satisfactory, the newspaper said.
''This is most speculative and not based on facts,'' PIA spokesman Khalid
Butt told Reuters.
Nepali rescue workers were searching on Wednesday for the plane's crucial
''black box'' flight recorder in the wreckage of the PIA airliner that slammed
into a hill near Kathmandu.
Moisture used to penetrate the radar cone, triggering malfunctions, a PIA
engineer told The News.
''The radar has shown false targets because the adjustable tilt went
haywire,'' the News quoted one pilot who flew the plane recently as saying. When
such problems occur, planes may lose flight mapping ability, he said.
Airport officials in Kathmandu said the pilot was 1,500 feet (450 metres)
below his prescribed flight path when he crashed into the hill at about 7,200
feet (2,195 metres).
Kathmandu airport is set in a saucer-like bowl surrounded by rugged hills and
pilots have to make an unusually steep descent into it. The airport does not
have radar and planes are guided by radio beacon.
Dawn newspaper said the pilot, Captain Iftikhar (Rpt Iftikhar) was involved
in a minor accident at Kathmandu a few months ago when all the tyres of his
plane burst on landing.
Iftikhar landed very fast, forcing him to brake heavily thus blowing out the
tyres, Dawn quoted a colleague as saying.
''He was probably trying to be over-cautious on Monday when he came in to
land at a dangerously low altitude,'' the newspaper quoted the pilot as saying.
TYPE:
International news, analysis, profiles
_________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Reuters, Limited
The Reuter Library Report
September 30, 1992, Wednesday, BC cycle
LENGTH: 69 words
HEADLINE: 50,000 Nepali stamps destroyed in air crash
DATELINE: ISLAMABAD, Sept 30
KEYWORD:
NEPAL -PLANE-STAMPS
BODY:
A shipment of 50,000 Nepali postage stamps was destroyed when a Pakistani
plane crashed into a hill near Kathmandu on Monday, killing all 167 people on
board, Pakistan's official APP news agency said.
Postage stamps for the Nepal government are printed regularly by the
Pakistan Security Printing Corporation and flown to Kathmandu. The consignment
destroyed was part of a larger order placed recently by Nepal.
TYPE:
International news, analysis, profiles
______________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Southam Inc.
The Gazette (Montreal)
September 30, 1992, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. B1/BREAK
LENGTH: 410 words
HEADLINE: Plane crash victims lived a dream in Montreal
BYLINE: GEOFF BAKER; GAZETTE
KEYWORD: FATAL AIR ACCIDENTS NEPAL
BODY:
An Outremont couple killed in Monday's crash of a Pakistani airliner in
Nepal had been living out a dream working side by side as doctors at a Ville
d'Anjou clinic.
Ivan Benko and his wife, Olga Benkova, came to Canada almost two decades ago
after studying medicine at Charles University in Prague, Czechslovakia.
They were among the 167 who died in the crash near Katmandu.
Visitors to the couple's clinic on des Ormeaux Ave. had no trouble
recognizing it was a family affair. Yurai Benko, the middle-aged couple's son,
has his dentist's office set up at the same address.
"This is a tragedy, a real tragedy," said Pierrette Auclair, who has lived
across the street from the Benko family in Outremont for more than 15 years.
"They were the nicest people you could ever meet. They would always be coming
over here for dinner, or we would go over there.
"One time, my son hurt his foot and I can remember we rushed him right across
the street to see the doctors."
Auclair said she was shocked when told of the deaths last night.
"I didn't even know they were on a trip," she said. "The last time I saw him
was about 10 days ago. He was doing gardening and all that ... he really took
good care of his house."
Another neighbor said the couple were respected by everyone on their block.
"It's so sad, what happened," she said. "Nobody ever had any problems with
them. They were kind, thoughtful people."
Benko and Benkova were always going on big trips overseas and had visited
Katmandu at least once before, she said.
Benko, a pediatrician, graduated from the faculty of medecine at Charles in
1960. His wife graduated two years later.
Both applied for and received their licence to practise medecine in Canada in
1974 and set up the clinic soon afterward. The couple also had a daughter,
Hanna, who had been studying in the United States.
Family members could not be reached for comment last night.
Yesterday Nepali teams searching a hill on the southern edge of the Katmandu
valley found the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the
airliner.
The instruments were discovered amid the wreckage of the Airbus A- 300
scattered over a two-square-kilometre area of wooded hillside, a police official
said.
Senior Nepali civil aviation officials said the pilot of the flight from
Karachi was about 450 metres below his prescribed flight path as he came into
land at Katmandu's airport during a rainstorm.
______________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The Press Association Limited
Press Association Newsfile
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: HOME NEWS
LENGTH: 216 words
HEADLINE: MISSIONARY FAMILY HAD PLANNED DIRECT FLIGHT
BYLINE: Gavin Cordon, Press Association
KEYWORD:
AIR; Crash; Missionary
BODY:
The British missionary family killed in the Kathmandu air crash had not
intended to be on board the fatal flight, it was disclosed today. Andrew and
Helen Wilkins and their three young children, Hannah, 10, Naomi, eight, and
Simeon, six, were planning to travel on a direct Royal Nepal Airlines flight
from Gatwick. But they were forced to take the Pakistan International Airlines
flight, stopping over at Karachi, because all the RNA flights had been booked up
by Nepalis returning home for a Hindu religious festival. "It is just terribly
ironic," said Jenny Taylor of Interserve, the family's missionary organisation
which made their travel arrangements. "We normally try to use the direct flight
because it is much easier when you have got small children. The stopover at
Karachi can be very trying - there are always long queues and difficulties with
passports." She said Interserve's air travel organiser, Illa Popat, had been
trying to find them a place on a direct flight since June but was told that all
seats were taken. "She has found it all extremely distressing," said Ms Taylor.
Mrs Wilkins' brother, Lionel Pitchford, was tonight flying out to Kathmandu on a
special PIA flight together with 46 other relatives and friends of the 37
Britons who died in the disaster.
__________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The Daily Telegraph plc
The Daily Telegraph
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: Pg. 3
LENGTH: 271 words
HEADLINE: Kathmandu Air Disaster: Pilots have to steer between mountains
BYLINE: By David Black, Transport Correspondent
BODY:
KATHMANDU is renowned among flight crews as one of the world's most difficult
airfields.
The Kathmandu valley is often compared to a saucer, but the Nepalese describe
it more dramatically by holding out a hand, palm upward, with the fingers
jutting out to represent the walls of towering peaks.
Aircraft approaching the airport must drop from a minimum altitude of 11,500
feet in precipitous steps to the runway 6,000 feet below. If they overshoot, the
crags on the far side of the city rear up to 21,000 feet. The buffeting of
mountain turbulence and a frequent canopy of clouds add to the dangers.
It is accepted wisdom in the aviation industry that the capital of the
Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal is almost a text-book example of where not to build
an airport.
But Nepal is surrounded by mountains, overland routes are few and poor, and
the airport is recognised as the kingdom's only reliable link with the outside
world.
Inbound aircraft can only come from the south-west, or from the east. On the
south-westerly or "Sierra" approach, aircraft descend through the minimum safe
height for the area of 11,500 feet at 16 miles from the runway. This was the
route the Pakistan International Airlines A300 was following.
Navigation aids at the airport are capable of guiding an aircraft down to 900
feet.
If the captain decides to abort, he must fly over the runway and execute a
tight 180 degree climbing turn to the right, to reach 9,500 feet by a point 10
miles north west of the airport.
However, the Pakistan International A300 did not make it that far. Descending
in cloud, it came down too low, too soon.
__________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The Daily Telegraph plc
The Daily Telegraph
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: Pg. 3
LENGTH: 886 words
HEADLINE: Kathmandu Air Disaster: Flight to adventure that turned into tragedy
BYLINE: By NIGEL BUNYAN, ROBERT REID, MICHAEL FLEET and FRANCIS HARRIS
BODY:
MANY of the Britons killed on the Pakistan International Airlines flight
which crashed in the hills south of Kathmandu were drawn to the mountainous
kingdom of Nepal by the promise of adventure holidays amid spectacular
scenery.
Other victims were charity workers and missionaries, going to one of the
world's poorest countries to offer equipment and expertise.
For Kate White, 26, and her friend Louise Peate, 31, their holiday was a
reward after a seven-year course in clinical psychology.
Just weeks after they took their final exams, they flew to Kathmandu, where
they died with 165 others on a hill south of the capital when their Airbus A300
crashed.
Louise's brother, David, 25, said: "We are devastated. Louise was somebody
who did not think about herself very much. She wanted to help people and cared
deeply about everyone around her."
Dr Alison Gourdie, 34, heading for a trekking holiday, was described as an
extremely talented hospital consultant. She became well-known after her
appearance in the fly-on-the-wall documentary Jimmy's, an insight into life at
St James's hospital in Leeds where she once worked as a casualty unit registrar.
As a keen hill walker, climber and skier, her trip to Nepal was to fulfil a
lifetime ambition.
Mr Keith Thomson, unit general manager at Stirling Royal hospital, said: "As
well as being an exceptionally talented consultant she had a tremendous
personality and was well-liked by everyone. She will be a great loss to both
hospitals here and to medicine in general."
Dominic Sasse was a relatively unknown but promising poet. He was carrying
the only draft of a new unpublished volume when he checked in for the doomed
flight to Nepal.
His widow is due to leave today for Kathmandu, where she will try to
establish whether her husband's collection of about 70 poems survived the crash.
Mr Sasse, 38, lived in Ludlow, Shropshire, with his wife Mary, 39, and two
children Joshua, 4, and Lydia, 9, and worked as a landscape gardener.
Mr William Sieghart, 39, chairman of Forward Publishing and a close friend of
the poet, said: "He was a seriously good romantic poet, an impassioned romantic
in the best sense of the word. "His poems were about love, loss, grief and
pain."
The critic and poet Mr Peter Levi likened Mr Sasse to a young Tennyson,
calling him "a remarkable poet".
Mr Sasse wrote in a poem called "Without Finance": As I saunter unabashed,
Best foot forward, hair slicked back, Am I not just the sort of chap, That
Fortune often favours?
Others whom fortune did not favour included a group of mountaineering friends
from Wales.
Mick Hardwick, 33, and his wife Susan, 28, David Harries, 33, and Alison
Cope, in her mid-twenties, were climbing instructors at the National
Mountaineering Centre, Plas-y-Brenin, at Capel Curig, Gwynedd.
The centre's chief instructor, Nick Banks, said yesterday: "We are all
devastated. We have lost not just four colleagues, but also four close friends.
"Sue and Alison were planning to go on a trekking holiday, while Mick and
Dave were planning an Alpine-style ascent of the south face of Annapurna 1.
"Both were top-class mountaineers and two of the leading mountain guides in
Britain."
Another victim was Mark Miller, 31, who jointly ran the Out There Trekking
travel agency in Sheffield.
His partner, Mr Andy Broom, said: "Apart from being a partner, Mark was a
good friend. He was one of the country's top mountaineers. He was a gregarious
extrovert and well known in the mountaineering community."
Brian Rollins, 40, an outdoor pursuits teacher in Didsbury, Greater
Manchester, spent much of his time working with disabled young people and had
planned a trekking holiday in Nepal.
His girlfriend, Sandie Goodyer, said: "Brian loved people and loved the
mountains and had been looking forward to this trip for a long time."
Pam Muttram, 33, a health care worker from Whalley Range, Manchester, also
died.
Judith Emanuel, director of health promotion with North Manchester Health
Authority, said: "Climbing was a great love of her life.
"This was the trip of a lifetime for Pam and it is tragic that she was
unable to complete it."
Laura Strutt, 76, of Chirk, near Wrexham, Clwyd, a voluntary worker at a
cottage hospital in Llangollen, had been carrying educational equipment for use
in a Nepalese school.
Her husband, John, 77, said: "She had visited Nepal five years running, and
had been there earlier this year for six weeks."
Deborah Leon, 32, a Transport and General Workers Union official from
Newcastle upon Tyne, was another seeking a taste of adventure in the Nepalese
hills.
Her mother, Mrs Sheila Leon, said: "We are devastated, simply devastated. We
will miss her dreadfully."
Dr Leon, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: "We
need to be left alone with our grief."
Sharon Henson, 25, and her boyfriend, Hamdi el-Menshawy, 27, who met as
students at Nottingham University, had planned a month-long trekking holiday in
Nepal.
They were enthusiastic travellers and had filled their home in Selly Oak,
Birmingham, with souvenirs of their trips.
Miss Henson had recently given up a secretarial job and hoped to set up a
hand-made jewellery and painting business. Reporting by Nigel Bunyan, Robert
Reid, Michael Fleet and Francis Harris.
___________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The Daily Telegraph plc
The Daily Telegraph
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: Pg. 3
LENGTH: 314 words
HEADLINE: Kathmandu Air Disaster: Letter plea for prayers
BYLINE: By Jenny Rees
BODY:
THE WILKINS family, who died in the Airbus crash, had written a letter asking
friends to pray for them in their new life in Nepal. The posting was to have
been the first appointment as qualified missionaries for Mr Andrew Wilkins, 38,
and his wife Helen, 36, who had spent a year at the All Nations Christian
College in Stanstead Abbots, Herts. They were returning to Kathmandu with their
children, Hannah, 10, Naomi, eight, and Simeon, six, to continue evangelical
work for the Intersave Fellowship. Mr Wilkins, an engineer, was going back to
his job with a power company. His wife planned to teach English or take up
social work. The illustrated letter, sent to St Andrew's Church, Stanstead
Abbots, and the college, said: "We return to Nepal on September 27. Uprooting
seems more difficult than four years ago. "The girls especially are very aware
of all they are leaving behind and are finding the goodbyes painful. However,
they are also looking forward with excitement to returning to Nepal. Simeon,
who has spent half his life in Nepal, is more complacent about it all . . .
"During vacations we have travelled around the country, visiting friends, family
and sharing at churches and meetings. In spring, the children managed a snowball
fight. Just a few months later, while on a summer holiday in Wales, muffled up
in warm clothes, we built sandcastles on a blustery beach." The letter ends:
"Now on the point of departure, we ask for your prayers - for ourselves and for
our families whom we leave behind, for a speedy settling in, language study,
school and work, finding the right place to live, facilitating easy
relationships with Nepali neighbours." Mrs Wilkins's mother, Mrs Joyce
Pitchford, 67, who saw off the family from Heathrow on Sunday with her husband
Dennis, also 67, said: "Missionaries are not immune. They are normal people. It
is not God's fault."
__________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.
The Toronto Star
September 30, 1992, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A14
LENGTH: 221 words
HEADLINE: Missed connection saved 13 from Nepal crash
BYLINE: AP
DATELINE: KARACHI
KEYWORD: AIR ACCIDENT DEATH NEPAL
BODY:
A delay in Germany likely saved the lives of 13 Europeans booked on a
Pakistan International Airlines flight that crashed in Nepal, killing all 167
aboard.
The Europeans were late for the connecting flight Monday and arrived in
Karachi about four hours after the Airbus A300 slammed into a hillside near
Katmandu, where crews yesterday located the cockpit voice recorder and retrieved
the victims' remains.
"We were cursing the delayed flight because it meant two wasted days," said
Erzer Ronato, a 20-year-old student at Bern University in Switzerland. "I never
believed in fate, but it has saved our lives."
Airline officials also said a Japanese passenger was pulled off the flight
because he had not obtained proper travel documents.
There was no immediate explanation for the crash, which occurred Monday near
the summit of a 2,100-metre (7,000-foot) mountain about 20 kilometres (12 miles)
south of Katmandu airport. The pilot gave no warning before he crashed on a
cloudy day with no rain or strong winds.
Two Canadians were listed on the flight, Mr. and Mrs. I. Benko of Montreal,
Asad Malik, the airline's Canadian general manager, told The Star's Al Barnes.
Nepalese Home Minister Sher Bahadur Deupa said the investigation of the crash
will begin tomorrow after all the remains are recovered.
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times
September 30, 1992, Wednesday
SECTION: Home news
HEADLINE: Victims' relatives fly to Kathmandu today
BYLINE: By Lin Jenkins and Ronald Faux
BODY:
AN INTERNATIONAL team of investigators believes it will know the precise
cause of the Pakistani Airbus A300 crash by the end of the week.
It was confirmed yesterday that of the 167 people on board killed in the
crash, 37 were British. The investigators studied flight recorders salvaged from
the wreckage in the foothills of the Himalayas a few miles short of Kathmandu
airport and errors by the crew are expected to be blamed for the crash.
As at least 30 relatives of the victims accepted an offer from Pakistan
International Airlines to fly to Nepal today, others recalled the adventurous
spirit and zest for life of all those on the trip.
Many of the 37 Britons who perished when the Airbus crashed had travelled
alone, displaying enthusiasm for exploration and curiosity about an alien
culture.
Among those who died were climbers, including Mike Hardwick, one of the most
highly regarded mountaineers in Britain, and his wife Sue. Staff at the National
Centre for Mountain Activities at Capel Curig, Gwynedd, were shocked yesterday
by the deaths of four instructors, the Hardwicks, and Dave Harries and Alison
Cope, on their way to climb in the Himalayas.
Mr Hardwick and Mr Harries were planning an unsupported ''alpine style''
ascent of the south face of Annapurna I, (26,250ft). Sue Hardwick and Alison
Cope were to have joined a party of ten trekkers to climb Tent peak, a lower
summit near by.
Another climber killed was Brian Rollins, 40, of Didsbury, Manchester, a
lecturer at Arden College, Northenden, Greater Manchester, and respected for his
work with disabled youngsters and arranging mountain trips for them. Illness
prevented Sandie Goodyer, his girl friend, from flying with him.
Another leading British mountaineer to die was Mark Miller, 31, a partner in
the Sheffield-based adventure holiday company Out There Trekking. He was
travelling to Nepal with Victor Radvils, 27, of Sheffield, to join an attempt
on Makalu (27,790ft).
Mary Sasse, whose husband, Dominic, 38, a poet from Shropshire, was on a
regular visit to their Himalayan trekking lodge, set up five years ago in memory
of his father, a Gurkha, was among those leaving for Nepal. The couple, who
have two children, Lydia, 9, and Joshua, 4, spent a year in Nepal setting up
the lodge. Mr Sasse was working on a third volume of poetry. The only copy was
with him on the plane.
Dr Alison Gourdie, 34, who was seen in the television documentary Jimmy's as
a casualty consultant at St James' Hospital, Leeds, was celebrating her
appointment as a senior consultant with a trip to Kathmandu.
Another victim who, like Mr Sasse, had close ties with Nepal was Laura
Strutt, 76, a charity worker from Chirk, on the WalesShropshire border. She was
taking books, cassettes and educational materials to a school in Nepal on her
second visit this year. Her husband, John, 77, said: ''She had visited Nepal
five years running.''
Louise Peate, 31, and Kate White, 26, who had just qualified as clinical
psychologists, made the trip together to celebrate the end of seven years' study
and the start of new jobs.
Neighbours of Pam Muttram, 28, one of ten backpackers bound for a six-week
holiday, placed flowers on the doorstep of her home at Whalley Range,
Manchester, yesterday. Manchester health authority praised her role in its
women's health team.
Deborah Leon, 32, a women's officer with the Transport and General Workers'
Union on Tyneside, was a keen cyclist and enjoyed rock climbing. Her father,
Colin Leon, a GP, and her mother, Sheila, were being comforted by their other
four children at home in Newcastle last night. A couple from Harrogate, North
Yorkshire, who were on the first leg of a year-long world tour, were killed.
Caroline Jones, 29, a building society deputy manager, and Peter Jones, who
worked for a computer company, had been married a year.
Friends of the missionary Andrew Wilkins, 38, his pregnant wife, Helen, 36,
and their children Hannah, 10, Naomi, 8, and Simeon, 6, yesterday said prayers
for them. On the noticeboard of the local church at Stanstead Abbots,
Hertfordshire, was a poignant reminder of the family. An open letter,
illustrated with cartoons, tells of their plans to return to Nepal. It ends:
''Now, on the point of departure, we ask for your prayers for ourselves and our
families whom we leave behind.''
The missionary Andrew
Wilkins and his family expressed their feelings about returning to Nepal in
a letter that included the sketches on the left. The letter said:
WE RETURN TO NEPAL ON 27th SEPTEMBER
Uprooting the family seems more difficult than four years ago. The girls
especially are very aware of all they are leaving behind and are finding the
goodbyes painful. However, they are also looking forward with excitement to
returning to Nepal.
Simeon, who has spent half his life in Nepal, is more complacent about it
all. Since July we've been on the constant move (one friend termed us
''displaced persons''). We are all now feeling ready to settle in one place
again: three years without a move sounds appealing.
With our love, Andy, Helen, Hannah, Naomi, Simeon.
______________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1992 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
September 30, 1992, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A30
LENGTH: 338 words
HEADLINE: 2 From Md. Killed in Nepal Crash
SERIES: Occasional
BYLINE: Retha Hill, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
For more than a year, Marylanders Shaun Broomell and Philip Marsh had looked
forward to climbing in the Himalayas and hiking through Nepal.
But Monday, as they were headed for Kathmandu airport, the Pakistani airliner
on which they were traveling slammed into a hillside, killing all 167 people on
board.
Yesterday friends and relatives of the two Maryland men gathered in Olney,
Columbia and Baltimore to mourn.
They were remembered as robust young men, tall and handsome, who liked the
rugged side of life.
Kathleen Marsh said her son, Philip, 26, "always talked of going there. He
prepared for this trip for a long time. They were going to do a lot of touring
and climbing. They took a lot of gear. They loved camping. They loved the
mountains."
Philip Marsh, who grew up in Columbia and graduated from Wilde Lake High
School, was an experienced traveler who had traversed Europe with his family.
Shaun Broomell, 23, who spent his childhood in Olney and graduated from
Sherwood High School at age 16, was looking forward to his first big trip, his
mother, Sharon Caldwell, said.
"He had been saving for it for almost a year," she added. "He was going to
the Himalayas."
Marsh and Broomell met at Montgomery College, where they were studying
radiology technology.
Since April Broomell had been radiology technician at Liberty Medical Center
in Baltimore.
Marsh recently quit his job as a CAT scan technician at Sinai Hospital in
Baltimore. He had indicated his interest in working at Liberty Medical Center
when he returned from his trip, a Liberty official said.
Broomell and Marsh planned to spend five weeks in Nepal. First they were to
visit Marsh's childhood friend, Jonathan Murray, a Peace Corps worker assigned
to a small village in Nepal, then head toward the foot of Mount Everest.
Murray, who is from Columbia, heard Monday's plane crash while he was waiting
for his friends at the Kathmandu airport, according to his father, Walter Rue
Murray. Jonathan Murray called home with the grim news.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, SHAUN BROOMELL
TYPE: MARYLAND NEWS
SUBJECT: MARYLAND; NEPAL; AIR TRANSPORT ACCIDENTS; TRAVEL AND TOURISM
ORGANIZATION: KATHMANDU
NAMED-PERSONS: SHAUN BROOMELL; PHILIP MARSH