NEW DELHI – A small plane with 21 people aboard crashed in Nepal Monday morning, killing 15, including the pilot and co-pilot. The accident, involving a Dornier 228 aircraft operated by Agni Air, occurred near mountainous Jomsom Airport some 200 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu.
The charter flight from Pokhara city to Jomsom carried 16 Indian tourists, two Danish tourists and three Nepali crew. Two Indian children, aged 6 and 9, and their 45-year-old male Indian relative, all surnamed Kidambi, survived in critical condition, along with a Danish man and woman who were not immediately identified and a flight attendant, according to the Indian and Danish embassies in Kathmandu.
The survivors, in serious condition, were flown by helicopter to nearby Pokhara and admitted to the Manipal College of Medical Sciences, according to Apoorva Srivastava, an Indian Embassy official.
Narayan Dattakoti, a deputy inspector general of police, told media that early indications were the aircraft was in good condition, although the terrain was challenging and the wind pressure a bit higher than usual. An investigation has been launched, he added.
The crash involving the 11-year old aircraft reportedly occurred as the pilot attempted a landing at high-altitude Jomsom Airport. The fuselage reportedly broke into pieces, although it did not catch fire. “The captain made a left turn and crashed into the mountain,” Dattakoti said.
Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai expressed his condolences in a statement. The airport is a gateway for trekkers and religious pilgrims.
Impoverished Nepal with its weak regulatory structure, challenging topography and fast-building storms, has seen several aviation accidents in recent years, most involving small aircraft. Fly-around tours of Mt. Everest and other top Himalayan peaks are popular with tourists.
Harshwardhan, an aviation expert and former Air India pilot who uses only one name, said the fact that the airplane crashed into a mountain tends to point to some sort of pilot error. “We’re seeing too many accidents of a similar nature in a short period of time,” he added.
A fundamental problem in both India and Nepal is that bureaucrats tend to oversee civil aviation rather than independent safety boards, added M.R. Wadia, former president of Mumbai-based Federation of Indian Pilots, an industry group.
In August 2010, a Dornier-228 operated by Agni Air crashed 20 minutes south of Kathmandu in bad weather killing 14 people, including four Americans, a Japanese and a British national. And in September 2011, a Buddha Air plane ferrying tourists on a sightseeing trip around Mount Everest crashed, killing all 19 people on board.
source: latimes.com
