A Nepalese newspaper claimed that Abid Sultan, pilot of the US-Bangla plane that crashed at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport in March, killing 51 people, appears to have lied to the control tower during the landing procedure and was smoking continuously inside the cockpit.
The Kathmandu Post published a report Monday quoting an official investigation led by the Nepal government.
However, a joint investigation committee comprised of Bangladesh, Nepal, Bombardier and other countries and international agencies is yet to publish any report.
The Nepali newspaper claimed that Captain Sultan was going through tremendous personal mental stress and anxiety, and a series of erroneous decisions on his part led to the crash.

However, when contacted with the local authorities, they termed the report baseless.
Managing Director of US-Bangla airlines Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun said, “It is baseless. The joint investigation committee is yet to submit its final report.”
He said there is no way a pilot can smoke inside a cockpit as the whole aircraft has detector and it must give signal if it detects anything unusual.
General Manager of the airlines Kamrul Islam said, “Before the flight, Abid underwent a medical check and nothing unusual was find.”
The report of the Kathmandu Post claimed, throughout the flight, Sultan was engaged in erratic behaviour that marked a departure from his usual character-signs that should have immediately raised red flags, Nepali investigators concluded in the report.

HOW THE CRASH UNFOLDED

Six minutes before the landing time, Sultan had confirmed that the plane’s landing gear was down and locked. “Gears down, three greens,” the pilot said, according to the report, referring to the electrical indicator lights inside the cockpit.
However, when co-pilot Prithula Rashid conducted a final landing checklist, the landing gears were not down.