July 31, 2024
KATHMANDU – MPs have raised serious concerns over the delays in implementing air safety measures, blaming the government for making Nepal’s civil aviation notorious worldwide.
Sunday’s parliamentary deliberation comes in response to the July 24 crash of Saurya Airlines CRJ-200 that killed 18 people. The flight captain miraculously survived the crash as the cockpit broke off upon impact.
The clips circulating on social media sites show that a minute after takeoff, the plane went out of control just a few hundred feet off the ground.
The aircraft tilted to the right, with its wing tip hitting the ground in seconds before the plane swerved to its left and hit a container. By the time the plane came to rest in the ravine, it had already been engulfed in a huge ball of fire.
“120 people have been killed in the past two years in air disasters. How can anyone forget the pain?” questioned Nepali Congress lawmaker Sanjay Kumar Gautam.
He questioned the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal’s role. “What is it? A regulator or a service provider? What’s its role?
“Where are the civil aviation bills? We need to bring the bills to Parliament immediately.”
Two long-pending aviation bills—the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal Bill and the Air Service Authority of Nepal Bill—envisage splitting Nepal’s aviation body into two entities—service provider and regulator, a condition for Nepal to be struck off the European Commission’s air safety list.
The government first announced the proposal in its Three Year Interim Plan 2007-08 to 2009-10, which stated, “In the context of the completion of the study on the institutional strengthening of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, which has been working as the service provider in civil aviation, airport operator and regulator; implementation of doable recommendations suggested by the report are being considered.”
Since then, every periodic plan and policy, including the annual budget, has prioritised separating the civil aviation body. But the idea has never been implemented.
Nepali Congress Lawmaker Rajendra Bajgain informed the House that there have been seven air accidents in the past two years alone. He said the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has asked to separate regulatory and service work in Nepal’s air service. “But that has not been done.”
“Look at the situation of the airport of Nepal’s capital city. Nepal’s tourism is in a coma due to the frequent crashes. Corruption has plagued the aviation industry,” he told Parliament, demanding immediate reform measures so that people would not have to die while flying.
Lawmaker Sunita Baral, the whip of the CPN-UML Parliamentary Party, said that the risk to Nepal’s air safety is increasing. “The crashes have been taking place one after another. This will seriously affect the tourism industry.”
“A flight comes down within a minute of take-off. How does that happen?”
She said that Nepal has seen tourism as a catalyst for economic prosperity. “But if air travel is unsafe, it sends a bad message.”
Baral said that the investigation commission should probe the matter seriously.
However, as MPs have expected, a probe commission cannot blame a person or to prosecute them even if it finds them guilty.
Experts say that under ICAO Annex 13 to the International Civil Aviation Convention, states must investigate an air accident and incident or delegate the responsibility of looking into accidents in their territory to another entity.
However, the sole objective of an Annex 13 investigation is to prevent accidents and incidents and generate safety data and information to avoid similar accidents or incidents in the future.
Therefore, Annex 13 investigations do not concern themselves with apportioning blame or liability.
Any judicial or administrative proceedings to apportion blame or liability will be separate.
In Nepal, there is no single example of a judicial or criminal proceeding in 108 air incidents spanning the country’s 71-year-old aviation history. The civil aviation service started in Nepal in 1953 with three old American-made DC-3 Dakotas belonging to an Indian company. After five years, the Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation was established.
House members on Sunday wanted an investigation so that those responsible for such disastrous incidents are punished. However, that’s possible only when the court or the government pursues criminal charges for operators and regulators for failing to comply with the rules.
In a recent example, Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a US criminal fraud charge stemming from the crashes of two 737 Max jetliners, angering the families of the hundreds of passengers killed who had wanted the case to go to trial.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when Lion Air Flight 610 fell into the Java Sea off Indonesia. In March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa airport, claiming 157 lives.
Another lawmaker, Purna Bahadur Gharti, also demanded a fair investigation into the crash.
Lawmaker Rajendra Lingden questioned how non-technicians were allowed to board the ferry flight. The plane was scheduled to fly to Pokhara for C-check, heavy maintenance. “It looks like even the regulator was unaware of who was on board.”
He pointed to the regulator’s negligence. “We have also heard that the civil aviation body hastily allowed the operation of the new Pokhara International Airport in January last year.”
On January 15, a Yeti Airlines plane crashed while approaching the airport. The Post, too, had reported that flight calibration, which tests all equipment at the new airport, had not recommended landing from the west, the path followed by the Yeti flight.
Experts at that time had pointed out how the flight procedure was not published. Airlines had very little information on airport procedures and data.
No evaluation was carried out as required by the ‘safety management system’, neither by the civil aviation regulator, as an airport service provider, nor by the airlines.
“The civil aviation body misused its regulator role to operate the airport, neglecting safety requirements. It was a serious crime and mass murder, and subject to criminal investigation,” one aviation expert had said at the time.
Speaking in the House on Sunday, Lawmaker Prabhu Sah said that the frequent crashes have sent a message that Nepal’s air safety is poor. “The relevant agencies should be held responsible and accountable for this.”