Why Planes Crash So Often in Nepal

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Why Planes ****** So Often in Nepal

The plane ****** that ******* 18 people in Nepal on Wednesday was at once horrific and sadly common, one of dozens of aviation disasters in the small Himalayan nation in the past decade.

After each new accident, investigators point the blame in many directions, citing weather, difficult terrain, overworked pilots, aging aircraft. But a root problem is left unaddressed: A conflict of interest in which the officials who provide lucrative aviation services are the same ones who regulate them.

This arrangement leaves the country’s Civil Aviation Authority to investigate itself if problems arise. It impedes, analysts and former officials say, the kind of urgent changes, and strict adherence, needed to improve oversight of life-or-****** safety matters.

The result has not just been frequent crashes — nearly 40 since 2010, according to government reports, resulting in over 350 deaths. Nepal’s poor record also threatens to further cut off its aviation industry from the outside world and deprive the poor nation of an important tourism stream.

The ********* Union has barred the country’s airlines, including the national carrier, Nepal Airlines, for over a decade. If countries like India, China and the Gulf nations did the same, said Yogesh Bhattarai, a former aviation minister in Nepal, “that would be a huge loss for us.”

The crashes in recent years have run the gamut, involving planes of all sizes: Fifteen helicopters, four single-engine planes and 16 double-engine planes. Except for three foreign airplanes, they have all been operated by Nepali companies.

The plane that crashed on Wednesday belonged to Saurya Airlines, which is struggling financially. About 20 seconds after takeoff, the 50-seater Bombardier CRJ-200 veered to the right and crashed near the runway.

The flight had been bound for Pokhara, a tourist destination, from the capital, Kathmandu. It was carrying 19 people — 17 airline staff members, and the wife and child of one of them. The pilot was the only survivor.

As they do after every ******, the authorities promised another committee to investigate the disaster.

The plane was being moved to Pokhara International Airport, which has remained mostly empty after being built largely by ******** companies and financed through debt to ******** creditors. The airline does not have a designated hangar at the Kathmandu airport, according to a Civil Aviation Authority spokesman, Gyanendra Bhul, and the charge to park the plane at Pokhara was lower.

The plane was to undergo a battery of heavy maintenance in Pokhara known as a C-check, normally conducted every 18 to 24 months. That raised an immediate question among air safety analysts: Why would the aviation authority allow so many people to travel on a plane ahead of those tests?

Experts and former officials said that such decision-making was emblematic of the structural problems that have long gotten in the way of reducing the number of crashes in Nepal.

The Civil Aviation Authority runs dozens of airports and provides most of their services. At the same time, it regulates and monitors everything from the training and qualifications of personnel to the technical aspects of aviation and air traffic navigation.

Sanjiv Gautam, a former civil aviation chief in Nepal who now works as a safety consultant, said that most of Nepal’s neighbors had long split off the work of air safety regulation, entrusting it to independent bodies.

What makes matters worse in Nepal, he said, is that the regulatory side of the authority is extremely underfunded and understaffed, with just 8 percent of the agency’s personnel allocated to it.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. watchdog, has asked the Nepali government to split up the civil aviation body. As evidence that the current system is not working, Nepal’s post-accident investigations score abysmally with the I.C.A.O., meeting just a quarter of its listed norms. The ********* Union has also cited the conflict of interest in its blacklisting of Nepali airlines.

“The Civil Aviation Authority has two hats on one head — one of service provider, and another of oversight,” Mr. Gautam said. “Can you tell me what happens if any air traffic controller makes a mistake? Will the Civil Aviation Authority hide the information or not?”

Nepali officials cite improvements in other areas audited by the international regulatory authority, including better implementation of oversight functions. In an interview last year, Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, the Civil Aviation Authority’s chief, acknowledged that the Nepali air safety system was still hampered by “weakness” and a shortage of resources, but said that the agency continuously learned and implemented lessons from accident investigations.

“Of course, incidents happen once the implementation part is weak,” he said.

Since 2020, there has been an effort to split up the aviation agency. But that push is still caught up in the country’s messy and turbulent politics.

“There should be a permanent investigation institution that is free from any influence,” Mr. Bhattarai, the former aviation minister, said.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Planes #****** #Nepal

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/