Nepal Airlines avoided crashes twice in a month

Kathmandu. An investigation is going to be conducted on the miscreants of Air India, who survived a collision with Nepal Airlines in the sky. Nepal Civil Aviation Authority is going to investigate the airlines involved in the incident keeping in mind the air security sensitivity.

Last Friday, a Nepal Airlines flight was coming to Tribhuvan Airport from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At the same time, the Air India plane flying from Delhi to Kathmandu was flying at an altitude of 19,000 feet. Without the permission of the Air Traffic Controller (ATC), the Air India plane suddenly descended at 15,000 feet and almost collided with the Nepal Airlines plane nearby. Soon after, Nepal Airlines avoided the accident by lowering the flight a few feet. It has been reported that the Civil Aviation Authority has drawn serious attention to this incident.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesperson Jagannath Niraula informed Ratopati that a two-member investigation committee has been formed to investigate Air India’s extreme carelessness in a very sensitive matter like air safety.Action will be taken against those who make mistakes in matters of extreme sensitivity like air safety. We are currently studying what happened in the incident. We will make it public when the truth and facts are known,” Niraula said to Ratopati.

However, although the authority has formed an investigation committee internally, the information of the members has been kept confidential. Niraula says that the committee has been instructed to study and submit the report as soon as possible.

Second incident within a month
This is not the first such incident. Earlier, on February 15th, a similar incident took place in Nepali skies. On February 27, 2023, Qatar Airways, which was coming to Kathmandu from Doha, Qatar, and Nepal Airlines, which was coming to Kathmandu from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, also escaped from crashing in the sky. Domestic Airlines ‘Buddha Air’ also narrowly escaped from the incident.

What happened ?
On the morning of February 15th, the air traffic at Tribhuvan Airport was very crowded. There was a queue of planes taking off on the runway and planes asking for permission to land. At this time, Qatar Airways from Qatar, Nepal Airlines from Malaysia and Buddha Air from domestic destination requested landing permission from Tribhuvan Airport ‘Air Traffic Control (ATC)’. However, the runway was packed.

Due to the load of air traffic, the ATC tower of TIA asked all the three planes to hold in the sky for a while. The ships were held at Gurans Bindu (an area above Bhattedanda in Lalitpur designated for holding ships) 17 miles south of the airport. While the plane of Qatar Airways was at an altitude of 13,500 feet, Nepal Airlines was at an altitude of 12,500 feet and Buddha Airlines was at an altitude of 11,500 feet.

At that time, Qatar Airways suddenly dropped down 700 feet as the three ships were held at a distance of 1-1 thousand. The plane almost collided with Nepal Airlines after it went down without any permission from ATC. On the other hand, Nepal Airlines also avoided the accident by immediately lowering its altitude. However, there was another risk that the airline could collide with Buddha Air, another ship on the lower step. This could have caused all three ships to crash. However, that did not happen. All three ships survived this incident.

In particular, Qatar Airways is seen as the main culprit in this incident. Two other ships were also at risk when they lowered their altitude without taking any permission from Air Traffic Control. Spokesman Niraula told Ratopati that the truth and facts of this incident will be investigated.

Here the investigation committee investigates both incidents. Looking at the nature and sensitivity of the incident, it is certain that action will be taken against the airlines,” Niraula said.