Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press Published Thursday, January 19, 2023 7:19 am EST Last updated Thursday, January 19, 2023 7:19 am EST
NEW DELHI (AP) — The newly opened airport in Nepal where a Yeti Airlines plane was trying to land when it crashed over the weekend, killing all 72 people on board, did not have a working instrument landing system that guides planes to the runway. an official said Thursday. Aviation safety experts said it reflected the Himalayan country’s poor air safety record, although the cause of the accident has not been determined.
Jagannath Nirula, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said the instrument landing system at Pokhara International Airport will not be operational until February 26 – 56 days after the airport began operations on January 1.
An instrument landing system helps aircraft fly safely when the pilot is unable to maintain visual contact with surrounding obstacles and the ground, mainly due to weather conditions or at night. Pilots can also fly by sight instead of relying on instruments.
Pilots say mountainous Nepal, where in-flight visibility problems are common, can be a difficult place to fly, but conditions at the time of the crash were good, with light winds, clear skies and temperatures well above freezing. While it’s still unclear what caused the crash, some aviation experts say ground-based video of the plane’s final moments shows the plane stalled, though it’s unclear why.
Amit Singh, an experienced pilot and founder of India’s Safety Matters Foundation, said the lack of an instrument landing system or navigation aids could be a “contributing cause” of the crash and pointed to Nepal’s “notoriously poor air safety culture”.
“Flying in Nepal becomes challenging if you don’t have navigational aids and it puts extra stress on the pilot when he experiences problems in flight,” said Singh. “The lack of an instrument landing system only confirms that Nepal’s air safety culture is inadequate.”
Yeti Airlines said the plane’s cockpit voice recorder would be analyzed on site, but the flight data recorder would be sent to France. Both were taken out on Monday.
The twin-engine ATR 72-500 was flying from the capital Kathmandu to Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the west, when it plunged into a gorge while approaching the airport. The crash site is about 1.6 kilometers (one mile) from the runway at an altitude of about 820 meters (2,700 feet).
The crash is the deadliest in Nepal since 1992, when a Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed into a hill while trying to land in Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board. Since 1946, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal, according to the Safety Matters Foundation.
A 2019 safety report by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said the country’s “hostile topography” and “varying climatic conditions” were the biggest dangers to flying in the country.
The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying to the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing lax safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continued to push for administrative reforms.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda met bereaved families on Thursday and asked hospital authorities to expedite the remaining autopsies of some victims so that their bodies can be handed over to their families.
Authorities said it took time to identify several badly burned bodies.
Add Comment