SANGAM

14 killed in Agni Air crash
SANGAM PRASAIN
KATHMANDU, AUG. 24
Fourteen people, including five Nepali, four Americans, Japanese, a British national and 3 aircraft crew, were killed when Agni Air’s 9N AHE D-228 (15-seater-Dornier) crashed at Sikharpur VDC-2, Bastipur in Makwanpur district on Tuesday.

Airport officials said that the incident took place at about 7;30 am while the carrier heading to Lukla diverted back to Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) reported of bad weather.

The plane had five Nepali passengers—Ishwar Rijal, Ashwari Rai, Temba Nurbu Sherpa, Prakash Amagain and P. Sherpa-- and three crews—pilot Laxman Prakash Shah (Lucky), co-pilot Sophiya Singh and airhostess Sahara Sherpa.

Foreigners includes—Yuki Hayashe (Japanese), Taylor Jeremy (British) and Americans; Irina Shekhets, Levzi Cardoso, Heather Finch, Kendra Dominique Fallon. All the passengers were boarded in AG-101 scheduled the departure time at 6: 30 am.
Bimlesh Karna, manager, Air Traffic Section, TIA said that the cause of the crash was unknown however; the preliminary study shows the bad weather condition was behind the accident.

According to him, the flight contacted the control tower in TIA after 15 minutes of its take-off. “Weather was clear in both TIA and Lukla airport when the aircraft took-off but after some 15 minutes the pilot reported the control room that the weather condition was bad in the mid-way,” he said.

Airport authority said that the aircraft was in 35 nautical miles (in between Ramechhap and Jiri) when it encountered with heavy rainfall and clouds.
Responding the pilot, the control room instructed the aircraft to divert to the South direction i.e the Simara route.

Karna said that the flight was operated under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) system that needs the plane to approach 11,500 ft. Under this rules, aircraft can be operated at 1,500 meter visibility. While the normal flight ‘Visual Flights Rules’ needs 5,000 meter visibility.

The IFR is a regulation and procedures for flying aircraft by referring only to the aircraft instrument panel for navigation. Even if nothing can be seen outside the cockpit windows, an IFR-rated pilot can fly while looking only at the instrument panel. IFR-rated pilots are authorized to fly through clouds.

The gateway of Mt. Everest, Lukla had been reported of bad weather for eight consecutive days. Only, on last Sunday, a single aircraft made a flight movement. Agni Air was the first scheduled flight to Lukla on Tuesday.

As per the IFR instruction, the aircraft was directed to fly 16 nautical miles towards South but after the aircraft reached 8 nautical miles to South, the pilot again contacted the tower that the weather was clear there and the aircraft was making direct flight to TIA from that point, Karna said. “Since than, we lost contact with the aircraft,” Karna said. The control tower lost communication with the aircraft at 7: 26.

According to a source, Agni was stalled due to the mechanical problem. Stalls in fixed-wing flight are often experienced as a sudden reduction in lift. However, a stall does not mean that the engine(s) have stopped working, or that the aircraft has stopped moving. Stall problem emerged as the generator of the aircraft failed.

Binod Giri, Director, Aviation Safety Department, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said that the cause of cash cannot be identified immediately. “It can be either mechanical problem or weather problem that the accident happened; however there is no surety which problem the aircraft encountered,” he said.
However, Agni Air’s marketing manager Pramod Pandey said that the aircraft had had a regular check-up and there was no technical problem observed. The aircraft was added to the Agni’s fleet four years ago.

This aircraft crash has happened after a two-year interval. In 2008, October, the Yeti Airlines plane carrying 16 passengers (12 Germans and two Australians) and four crew crashed in Lukla airport during landing. Only the pilot survived in the crash.

Government forms prove committee
The government has formed a five-member committee led by aviation expert Kumar Prasad Upadhyay to study the plane crash incident on Tuesday.

The committee comprises Rajan Pokharel, deputy director of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), Rajendra Man Shakya, captain of Sita Air and Sharad Bhakta Raj Bhandari, engineer of Buddha Air, and under secretary of CAAN Suresh Acharya as member. The committee has to submit its report within 65 days.