SANGAM

Are Nepali skies safe?
SANGAM PRASAIN
AUG 27 -
On Tuesday, the day the ill-fated Agni Air Flight 9N AHE crashed in Makwanpur, a little known aviation news went unnoticed. The regulatory body of aviation in Nepal, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), grounded five aircraft belonging to Makalu Air and Air Kasthamandap. The reason: the doors of two aircraft opened mid-air. Not an extremely-dangerous scenario by itself, but coming on the back of the Agni Air crash, it points towards a malaise evident in Nepali aviation: a haphazard regulatory body that has overlooked airline operators cutting corners to compromise on safety.

Since 1949, the year the first aircraft landed in Nepal, there have been 63 different crashes involving both airplanes and helicopters, in which 628 people have died. Of these crashes, 95 percent have been said to occur due to what is known in aviation terminology as CFIT, or Controlled Flight Into Terrain—a state of flight when the pilots have full control of the flight and yet the plane hits terrain. Given our topography and climate, especially during the monsoon, it is natural that pilots have to be extra careful while flying, and the ground support staff has to be equally competent to ensure the aircraft is in perfect flying condition.

Unfortunately, it is here that problems lie. Captain Vijay Lama, who has been flying for 23 years, says everyone blames the pilot, but the reality is that “safety begins on the ground and ends on the ground.” He questions CAAN’s policy of giving operating licenses to nearly anyone who applies for it. The regulatory body itself does not enforce the safety regulations it has recommended to the airline operators.

Indeed, among aviation experts and enthusiasts, there are hushed rumours of how airline operators use unscrupulous means to ensure their flights land at certain airports when other airlines have been barred from landing due to poor flying conditions. A CAAN official who did not want to be named says, “If the Agni Air flight had a technical problem, or there was bad weather, who gave the clearance for it to take off?”

Reports suggest that continuous bad weather at Lukla airport for eight consecutive days forced all flights to and from the Everest hub to be cancelled, until the day Captain Laxman Prakash Shah ‘Lucky’ took off in the morning. Lama, who has been a pilot for 23 years, says pilots in Nepal have to operate under tremendous pressure. “There are pilots flying eight hours a day six days a week. They might deny it, but accumulated fatigue does occur. On top of that, there is pressure from everywhere—political leaders getting late for a meeting, airline operators who will lose out on revenue—for pilots to fly no matter what the weather conditions are like.”

The 2006 Ghunsa crash, off-the-record reports suggest, occurred due to the minister’s assistant’s insistence that the minister had to return to Kathmandu for a meeting that very day. This statement is confirmed in the report In Search of Safer Skies: A Report on Aviation Safety, written by journalist Toya Dahal in 2008. Sadly, as aviation enthusiast Hemant Arjyal says, one can only conjecture after the crash has occurred.

The biggest failure towards making Nepali skies safer seems to have been on part of the regulatory body. CAAN’s non-stringent regulation mechanism and willingness to bow under operator pressure remains a major problem, without which, aviation experts agree, the issue of aviation safety cannot be resolved.

For example, there are reports that private airlines, to cut down on costs, remove the back-up generator from one aircraft and use that as the primary generator for another aircraft (an aircraft usually has a backup generator if the primary fails, and even if the backup fails, it can fly on the battery to land safely, at least). Lama asks, “Has CAAN been honest enough to check whether operators are maintaining their aircrafts properly or not?” As Dahal’s report says, CAAN has given air-worthiness certificates, necessary for any commercial aircraft, to operators who do not even have a single aircraft. Repeated efforts to reach CAAN or its officials for comments remained unanswered.

Airline operators deny that they pressure their pilots to fly in bad weather. “Weather is something which is not in one’s hands. It remains the control tower’s jurisdiction whether or not to allow the aircraft to fly. After that, the captain can decide whether the conditions are okay for flying or not,” says Bikas J.B. Rana, chairman of Fishtail Air and ex-president of Airline Operators Association of Nepal. He also says airline operators have to remain within CAAN safety and maintenance guidelines, as there are “regular audits” every six months to a year. “Operators do not want to violate safety regulations.”

Instead, Rana says the most difficult part about flying in Nepal is the terrain, more specifically, the STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) airfields located in mountainous areas like Lukla. “It is more challenging to land on STOLs than on any other airfield.”

Rana believes Nepal’s aviation standards are stringent, and that maintenance and pilots are “no less than international standards”.

Still, another aircraft has just crashed, and a probe commission has been formed to look into why 9N AHE crashed. The CAAN source, however, remains sceptic. He says that airline operators control the regulatory body to such an extent that some airlines do not even have their own maintenance engineers. “What can be expected from a crash report if the investigating members are all connected to airline operators?” the source says. Arjyal has a similar opinion. “Why should CAAN be any different than other government bodies which are as corrupt?”







Major air crashes in Nepal

Mar. 3, 1955 : A DC-3 belonging to Kalinga Air crashed in Simra, killing two. This was Nepal's first air crash.



July 12, 1969 : A DC-3 belonging to erstwhile-Royal Nepal Airlines crashed in Hetauda, killing 35.



July 31, 1992 : A Thai Airways Airbus A310 crashed into Ghyangphedi, killing 113 people.



Sept. 28, 1992 : In Nepal's most-fatal air crash so far, a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into Bhattedanda in Lalitpur, killing 167 people.



Oct. 10, 1999 : An Avro HS-748 belonging to Necon Air crashed in Ramkot near Kathmandu, killing 15.



July 27, 2000 : A Twin-Otter belonging to Royal Nepal Airlines crashed in Dadeldhura, killing 25.



Sept. 22, 2002 : A Twin-Otter belonging to Shangrila Air crashed in Kaski, killing 18.



June 21, 2006 : A Yeti Airlines Twin-Otter crashed at Jumla Airport, killing 9.



Sept. 23, 2006 : A MI-17 helicopter belonging to Shree Air crashed in Ghunsa, Taplejung, killing 24. Among others, conservationists Chandra Gurung and Tirtha Man Maskey, and geographer Harka Gurung were killed.



Mar. 3, 2008 : A MI-8 helicopter belonging to UNMIN crashed in Ramechhap, killing 10.



Oct. 8, 2008 : A Twin-Otter belonging to Yeti Airlines crashed in Lukla, killing 18. Only the Captain survived.



Aug. 24, 2010 : A Dornier belonging to Agni Air crashed in Makwanpur, killing 14.