Kathmandu: In a tragic development, an Air Dynasty helicopter crashed in the Shivpuri area of Nepal's Nuwakot on Wednesday, killing all four persons on board and marking another grim incident in the country's patchy aviation record. The helicopter had departed from Kathmandu and was en route to Syaphrubensi when it crashed, a source at the Tribhuvan International Airport told the Himalayan Times.
Subash Jha, spokesperson of Tribhuvan International Airport, told Kathmandu Post that the 9N-AJD chopper belonging to Air Dynasty took off from Kathmandu at 1:54 pm for Syaprubesi, Rasuwa. The chopper was piloted by Captain Arun Malla and was carrying four Chinese nationals. Police have recovered five dead bodies from the crash site in Ward No 7 of Shivapuri Rural Municipality, Nuwakot, Myrepublica newspaper reported.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), a Prabhu helicopter was dispatched to the crash site immediately after the incident. There were five individuals on board, including four Chinese tourists, the paper said. The helicopter lost contact with the tower just three minutes after takeoff from Tribhuvan International Airport, according to the CAAN.
The incident took place weeks after a small plane belonging to Saurya Airlines skidded off the runway of the TIA and crashed after takeoff on July 24, killing 18 people while the pilot was the lone survivor. The incident put the spotlight back on Nepal's poor safety record, as nearly 350 people have died in plane or helicopter crashes in the Himalayan country since 2000.
That plane, carrying two crew members and 17 technicians, was going for regular maintenance to Nepal's new Pokhara airport, which opened in January and is equipped with aircraft maintenance hangars, they said. "Shortly after takeoff ... the aircraft veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway," the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement.
Eighteen of those on board were Nepali citizens while one engineer was from Yemen, Saurya said. "Only the captain was rescued alive and is receiving treatment at a hospital," said Tej Bahadur Poudyal, the spokesman for Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport. Authorities recovered the black box of the aircraft a day after the incident and handed it over to a probe team formed to inquire into the tragic accident.
Nepal's poor aviation safety record has been attributed to multiple reasons - from the rough mountainous terrain, unpredictable weather, poor maintenance and aircraft training as well as lack of proper infrastructure and maintenance of aircraft. Furthermore, Nepal has some of the world's most strenuous and remote runways, which pose a challenge for even experienced pilots. This came to the limelight after a Yeti Airlines plane crashed in Pokhara in January 2023, killing all 72 passengers on board.
The mountainous country sees frequent fluctuations in the weather and it is difficult to operate a flight without a proper weather forecasting mechanism. The deadliest aviation incident occurred in 1992, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus crashed into a hillside while approaching Kathmandu, killing 167 people. There have been more than 20 crashes in the last decade alone.
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