All occupants on board died in the crash; they included the pilot Peter Shand, Sir Edmund Hillary's wife Louise and daughter Belinda, the family's dog and two Sherpa friends of the family.[4][6]
Accident
The flight was a chartered flight, that took off from Tribhuvan International Airport at or before 7:30 a.m. NPT for its flight to Phaplu Airport. The aircraft took off on runway 20 in a southern direction, but the pilot directly asked for permission to land.[7] The aircraft turned towards the right but was unable to make a landing, crashing into a ditch behind the northern end of the runway.[3]
Aftermath
In her biography Keeper of the Mountains, Elizabeth Hawley describes that the pilot Peter Shand did not do a walk-around,[3] failing to see that an aileron was still fixed by a ground lock pin, because he was late to the airport and this caused the accident.[7]
The Nepali Times reported that the pilot was hired by Royal Nepal Airlines despite losing his previous job due to "carelessness".[8]