Questions raised over air safety as Nepal sees six air accidents in one year

Nepal witnessed six air accidents involving domestic airlines in the last one year raising the question over Nepal's air safety, Nepalese aviation experts and airline operators said.

In the latest incident, a helicopter of Fishtail Air crashed into a cliff at Madanpur area of Nuwakot district in central Nepal on Monday, killing all seven passengers and crew members on board including a newly born baby.

The incident happened just four days after crash-landing of a single engine aircraft belonging to Makalu Air, another domestic airline company, on a river in far western Humla district. Since the accident of Mountain Helicopter on June 2, 2015, the country witnessed six accidents involving domestic airlines which killed 36 passengers and crew members. Four of those accidents are of the helicopters.

Such accidents are taking place at a time when the Himalayan country is under the significant safety concern list of International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Commission has banned Nepalese airlines to fly over the sky of European Union, showing deficiency in Nepal's air safety.

Nepalese aviation experts and airline operators termed the recent air accidents unfortunate, admitting that these incidents have conveyed the message that the Nepal's sky is not safe.

"Although air safety in Nepal is challenging due to difficult terrain and ever changing climatic condition, there is not a proper safety management system in Nepal," said Rajesh Raj Dali, former director general of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the aviation regulator of Nepal.

According to him, there is not a proper coordination between key stakeholders for air safety-airline operators, pilots and the regulator. "There are not enough infrastructures on ground to mitigate the risk of tough terrain and weather as well," said Dali, who headed a probe committee of Tara Air crash in February.

Airline operators said that the regulator failing to take action against the airlines compromising on air safety also resulted in increased number of air accidents in Nepal.

Rameshwor Thapa, former president of Airline Operators Association of Nepal, a grouping of domestic airline operators, said that airline operators failing to ensure accountability among the crew members has also caused many accidents. "No action has been taken against the airline company whose aircraft has met accidents frequently," said Thapa, who is also owner of Simrik Air.

Bhim Raj Rai, who oversees media relations at Yeti Airlines, one of the largest domestic airline companies, said that they have increased the monitoring on the daily activities of their pilots while also providing many facilities to them for their refreshment following the crash of Tara Air, a subsidiary company of Yeti Airlines. "We have also installed cameras in different places to capture the weather conditions on the route of our aircraft," said Rai. Enditem