Crashed and died in the Himalayas

I’ve been hopping from city to city in northern India, tracking places my Indian-origin family took me to when I was a kid (but I grew up in North America). Saw the Taj Mahal, flew to my parents’ village 30 minutes away, etc. Plane: Cessna 172.

Then I decided to follow a family vacation we once had. There is no airport in the spectacular mountain village known as Nainital, so the closest airport that was also in that mountain region was Rudrapayag. This is a spectacular region in the Indian mountain states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

Most of the journey, I was arguing in vain with a non-human ATC controller. He wanted me to fly at 9,000 feet when it seemed obvious to me that anything below 9,500 meant death. But the mountains were also super confusing, so I wanted to keep up with his directions.

I did my best. I am amazed that real pilots land real planes at Rudrapayag. I’m also amazed that I survived the twists and turns long enough to even make it to the runway. I overshot the first time so I tried to turn around, which was not easy. When I came in the second time I knew that it was going to be a fail but I decided to try anyway, because I did not see how I could possibly turn around again. I would either crash on the runway or crash into a mountain and picked the former. I did land upright, but I skidded off to the side, into trees, and the plane flipped upside down and I’m dead.

I was in a panic for most of this last leg so it wasn’t easy to get a decent screenshot, but here’s one that made it. It’s about 3 minutes pre-death. (The green river at bottom left is where I actually had to go.)

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