Of the 20 passengers on board, 18including 2 children were from Nepal, one was from Hong Kong, and another was from Kuwait.
Flight
The aircraft took off from Pokhara at 7:50am local time. The normal flight duration on the route is 18minutes. The control tower officers at Pokhara lost contact with the aircraft 10minutes after takeoff; the wreckage was found at Tirkhe Dhunga, Dana VDC of Myagdi district at 1:25pm by a police team deployed from Dana Police Post. Tara Air reported that the weather at both origin and destination airports was favourable. During the flight, the co-pilot acted as the Pilot Flying and the captain as Pilot Monitoring. En route, the flight deviated to the left and climbed to to avoid clouds. Over the Ghorepani area, the Ground Proximity Warning System began to sound. The aircraft was flying through clouds with a little visibility between clouds. A descent to was initiated and at the GPWS sounded again, but the captain responded not to worry about it. The captain was accustomed to hearing GPWS warnings in normal flight, so it became a habit to disregard the warnings. About one minute before the accident the captain took over control and initiated a climb. The aircraft impacted a mountainside at and came to a rest at near Dana village, Myagdi district. Aviation Safety Network gives the probable cause as a loss of situational awareness when entering clouds while flying under Visual Flight Rules.
Recovery
Helicopters were used to search the route for hours, but rescue efforts were slowed down by poor weather conditions, including dense fog and heavy rain. The wreckage was found burning after impacting a mountainside, with charred bodies visible inside. Bishwa Raj Khadka, the district Chief of Police, stated that personnel involved in the rescue operations had recovered 17 bodies from the crash site.
Investigation
A "high level probe panel" was formed to investigate the crash. The wreckage of the aircraft was found "in an area of some, in Solighopte in Myagdi District, a part of Dhaulagiri Zone. The final report of the accident was released after 1 year and 5 months, the probable cause was the following "The Commission concludes that the probable cause of this accident was the fact that despite of unfavourable weather conditions, the crew's repeated decision to enter into cloud during VFR flight and their deviation from the normal track due to loss of situational awareness aggravated by spatial disorientation leading to CFIT accident."
