Kathmandu, Jan. 12: Following three air crashes that killed all the passengers and crew members in less than eight months, the general public has started to question the air safety management of the country. Today the government accepted the responsibility for the accidents fully.
“As the concerned Minister and Chairperson of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), I take accountability of weakness in air safety,” Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar said today. He also called for close correlation and support of CAAN and airline operators for each other to make air transportation safe and reliable. He also called the CAAN and airline operators to shoulder responsibility to restore the faith of general public in air transportation that has been severely jolted by the series of deadly accidents.
Gachchhadar further added that the government accords the highest concern for air transportation safety and pledged that it will leave no stone unturned to accomplish that target.
Assistant Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Narayan Singh Pun today said that Nepal has become a country with a very high number of accidents because either the pilot did not follow the civil aviation regulations or the flight instruments had technical errors. Pun himself is a pilot by profession and owns a helicopter service company.
“Most of the air safety regulation circulation are ignored by operators,” he said. He also said that the majority of the latest air accidents in Nepal occurred because the pilots miscalculated the altitude of mountains. “The latest six crashes happened because the pilots were not thinking about mountains,” he said.
In a surprise check monitored by Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister, a high level team of CAAN grounded three Lukla bound flights of Shangrila Air, Lumbini Airways and Flight Care Service earlier this month. The surprise check team found that the three private airlines aircraft were operating with their flights safety equipment out of order.
The inspection team also found other flights not operating in line with safety regulations prepared under Flight Safety Enhancement Package. Government owned Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation and other private airlines Buddha Air, Gorkha Air, Necon Air and Yeti Air were allowed to take off after operators made necessary correction of minor hitches pointed out by the inspection team.
CAAN today organised a briefing on Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) to Nepal that was participated by Honeywell Company and National Transportation Safety Board of United States.
Data show that 41 per cent of the air accidents occurred around the world are due to late warning and subsequent improper pilot response, 28 per cent of accidents are results of no warning because aircrafts is configured and 31 per cent accidents occur because GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System) is not installed.
The new EGPWS whose production started in 1996 after about seven years of research is claimed to have expanded safety benefits of horizontal and vertical look-ahead facilities, Caution Alert Time of 117 seconds and Warning Alert Time of 83 seconds and use of Corrected Barometric Altitude and geometric altimetry.
Honeywell Company has estimated the system to be certified on 180 aircraft types. It claimed that the system has been deployed in over 4,100 aircraft and 10,000 units ordered and having experience of greater than 24,000,000 flight hours.
Meanwhile RSS adds: Honeywell International Company of the United States of America has provided Nepal Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) with Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) equipment in order to make civil aviation services more safe and reliable in Nepal.
The EGPWS equipment which costs U.S. $ 70,000 helps to detect technical problems in an aircraft 117 seconds ahead through visual system.
Earlier in Nepal, the technical problems of an aircraft could be received only through audio system.
This information was provided at an interaction programme organised by the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority, National Transportation Safety Board, USA and Honeywell International Company, USA on what technology and equipment can be used for making civil aviation services more safe and reliable in Nepal.
Honeywell International Company is the main supplier of civil aviation equipment in the world. The EGPWS equipment supplied by Honeywell International Company is used in about 4,000 aircrafts of 150 airlines throughout the world.