The crew members of a private Austrian jet– that was forced to land at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) Monday for entering into Nepali airspace without permission—in their statements have said they flew over the Nepali air space as they wanted to’ view Mt. Everest’, according to reports.
Kantipur daily reported that the pilot of EMB-135 aircraft was a British national of Indian origin and that the plane had left Lilabari of Asam state of India to New Delhi. Instead of flying via Kolkata, the plane entered into Nepali airspace via Tumlingtar.
As soon as Nepali authorities took note of the aircraft in their air space, they consulted security officials and forced the plane to land at the TIA at 15:07 hours on Monday. During over four hours long preliminary investigation, the crew members have been quoted as saying that it could have been an incident of ‘communication gap.’ Quick Aviation—the handling agent based in India—had not received permission from Nepali authorities despite being asked to, they said. The aircraft belonged to Jet Airlines, another Indian private sector company.
After preliminary investigation involving officials from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), Immigration, Customs, Royal Nepalese Army and Nepal Police, officials said they did not find any ‘sensitive item’ in the aircraft from security point of view. The aircraft has been kept at the Royal Nepal Army’s 11 no. brigade at TIA and crew members and passengers spent night at a Kathmandu hotel under security watch.
The investigations would continue on Tuesday. The CAAN has already constituted an 11-member probe team led by its director Tri-Ratna Manandhar to probe into the incident—first of its kind in the history of Nepali aviation.