But the audit, as reported by local media, still expressed concern about shortcomings in air navigation, incident investigation and the organizational structure needed to implement the standards. safe.
Before the pandemic, air travel in Nepal was growing steadily, both domestically and internationally. Tourism, which brings hundreds of millions of dollars to the country, one of the poorest in the region, has bounced back after a sharp drop during the pandemic. Experts and officials have long been concerned about the ability of airports to meet the expanding demands.
Nepal’s difficult terrain, with some of the highest mountain ranges in the world, means that most air travel is done in small planes that travel between the country’s nearly 40 small airports. Larger international flights are mostly limited to Nepal’s main airport in the capital, Kathmandu. A third international airport was inaugurated this month in Pokhara, the site of Sunday’s crash, after construction financed by a $200 million Chinese loan.
Bijender Siwach, a retired military pilot and general manager of Air Safety India, a non-profit organization that conducts crash training and analysis, said the videos of the crash show See weather and terrain are not factors, because the sky is clear and the plane is flying. within close proximity of the landing zone.
While definitive answers will only come from the investigation, Mr. Siwach said the cause could be a technical error or human error that caused the plane to enter a state known as stalling. In such a case, the aircraft decelerates too much to remain aloft and loses control.
“If it had happened at 5,000 or 10,000 feet, the plane would have recovered at 2,000 feet if the pilot had reacted,” Mr. Siwach said. “But because the altitude was so low, maybe 200 or 300 feet, the pilot didn’t stand a chance.”
