An aircraft crash in Nepal’s capital on Friday morning led to the death of all 19 people on board.
A Dornier aircraft of Sita Air, a private airline operator, crashed minutes after taking off from the capital’s Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) on the banks of the Manhara river in the adjacent Bhaktapur district. The aircraft was headed to Lukla, the entry point for the Mount Everest region. Seven of the victims are Nepali, seven are British and five are Chinese.
According to TIA general manager Ratish Chandra Lal Suman, preliminary investigations showed that the aircraft hit a bird while taking off. The Air Traffic Control had given the plane clearance at 6.17 a.m. local time. A minute later, pilot Bijay Tandukar reported a bird had hit an engine and he would attempt an emergency landing back at the airport on a single engine. He was, however, unable to do so and the aircraft crashed a few hundred metres away from the runaway on the river banks, near a squatter settlement.
“In such a situation of single engine failure in a twin-engine aircraft, if the plane has reached a safe altitude and attained a certain speed, it can continue to fly while the pilot plans his next move. This is conjecture, but in today’s case, the pilot seems to have panicked as is natural under the circumstances. He may have tried a turn a little too early and too low,” aviation expert Hemant Arjyal told The Hindu
While Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai pledged to improve air safety, and the government constituted a five-member committee to investigate the causes of the crash, commentators were sceptical of results given the spate of recent aircraft crashes, and said the new report may well “gather dust”.
Friday’s accident could have been due to factors beyond human control, but as the Nepali Times weekly said in a special report on its website, “most crashes in Nepal are caused by pilot disorientation while flying through the mountains in cloudy weather”. It pointed out that this is the fifth instance of a domestic airliner crashing in the last two years, besides four helicopter crashes. Aircraft crashes have caused 114 deaths in the last six years.
In May this year, another Dornier aircraft hit a mountain near Jomsom airport; last year, a mountain flight crashed near Kathmandu, killing all passengers on board —many of whom were from Tamil Nadu.
Keywords: Nepal plane crash, Mt Everest tourism, Sita Airways
We are extremely sorry to hear that news for Tour operators for
Everest region. Of course, there were 19 killed 7 British, 1 American,
4 Chinese and 7 Nepalese including 3 crew members. We heard on the
news that when the plane crashed on the ground about 10 minutes some
people asking for the help from backside and the locals gathering
there and no-one is brave enough to rescue them. I think if someone broke
the windows most of members can be out from there before exploding and
firing the entire side. My question is that if the passengers are
asking help to save about 10 minutes why they don't open the emergency
door from back side? If the door may open most of them can be safe
their life but the door is ruined and can not open seems permanently
locked and even they can't broke the Windows by hand. Unfortunately,
they can not out and they dead as fire burnt. The big mistake done
by either airplane mgmt or by technician, we hope all emergency door
should open in other running planes.
Even an impeccably maintained /flown aircraft do get bird strike, AI's
B787 (new)had bird strike at Bangalore few days ago.
But if this happens at very low altitude and speed then the pilot has
very little option. It is easier to analyse or make unwarranted
comments, not knowing how best the pilot tried to come out of the
hopeless situation.
Bird strikes happen everywhere, you don't have to burn 19 ppl to death
because of bird strike. This is PURE PILOT ERROR, and this is SITA
Airlines refusing to adopt regulations prohibiting weight and balance
limits which MUST be set so the airplane can be flown to safety in a one
engine out scenario. Overloaded. Pilot's panicking - is not a pilot,
it's a child flying the aircraft. You NEVER turn back in an engine out
scenario w/out altitude. For godsakes he was next to a river, and could
have EASILY put down more safely in that.
Did a bird cause this disaster, or was it yet another victim of a space debris impact? It was only one week ago when thousands of people over the British Isles and Ireland witnessed many pieces of space debris in the night sky, there have also been similar sightings recently in other countries. It doesn’t need much stretch of the imagination to realise what a piece of space debris colliding with a plane in flight could do. Not all space debris is visible to the naked eye and not all burns up either. I believe there should be a full investigation into this possible cause.
This is very unfortunate and serious investigation is needed to check whether the aircraft are airworthy. We know that the airports in Nepal are tricky to fly in and out but this particular incident points to a malfunctioning in the aircraft. Bad aircrafts are going to multiply the risk in flying in Nepal airports.
This is becoming notoriously frequent in Nepal. What ails these small airline companies? Are the planes being maintained properly? Or are they pushed into overtime because of tourist season? Someone with power should please look into this problem. One can understand inclement weather and landing problems at tricky airstrips like Lukla, but to burn just after take off from Tribhuvan airport is definitely nothing tricky. This is very very sad.
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