KATHMANDU, JANUARY 9

The Nepal Airlines Corporation and the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal are investigating safety rules violation by NAC pilot in command (PIC) Subash Rijal on December 4, when he let his co-pilot Nripendra Bhattarai with only 30 hours of flying experience land a jet plane at Tribhuvan International Airport.

The Delhi-Kathmandu bound NAC flight made a hard landing of 2.2g at TIA on December 4. An NAC source who did not want to be quoted said that the plane was not supposed to exceed 1.8g value. 'It is normal for big aircraft to make landing of up to 1.8g but in this case the value went up to 2.2g. Such a landing poses safety risk for the passengers.'

The source said that on 8 January 2020, NAC 330 widebody aircraft made a landing of 3.3g at TIA, following which the CAAN probed the matter and made 12 recommendations.

The main point the aviation regulatory body made was that pilots must have 1,500 hours of flying experience in the same type of aircraft in order to be able to land the aircraft. The source said that the NAC came to know of the incident late because Rijal recorded the incident in the aircraft log but did not file an occurrence report which was a standard procedure to follow after such an incident.

NAC source said that PIC Rijal tried to control the landing but it was too late and he could not reverse the bumpy landing.

He said the CAAN stated in its investigation report that PIC Rijal acted negligently and his action violated safety rules.

NAC source said that they issued an explanation letter to Rijal and he admitted his mistakes.

'Rijal has argued that trainee pilots should be allowed to land at the airport. He may have his own arguments, but this is not the time to make such arguments. If he was of this view, he should have put forth his views before the CAAN when the regulatory body issued its 12-point recommendations a few months ago,' the NAC source added.

He said the NAC had taken safety violation incident seriously and it could soon take a decision to ban Rijal from flying aircraft.

Pilot Subash Rijal said hard landing was a normal thing in the aviation sector. He said there were vested interests that were blowing the issue out of proportion. 'If it was a big deal then why did the NAC or the CAAN not raise the issue a month ago when the incident happened,' he added. Rijal said that vested interests wanted to make internal pilots jobless and allow foreign pilots to fly NAC flights.

He said he decided to let co-pilot Bhattarai make the landing because he and some other pilots had not been given a chance to gain flying experience for the past seven-eight months. 'I am allowed to train my co-pilots and unless I allow my co-pilots to land the aircraft, how can they learn the much-needed skill?' he wondered. Rijal said he had been training new pilots since 2002.

CAAN Spokesperson Dev Chandra Lal Karna said that his office had been investigating the issue.

Unless I allow my co-pilots to land the aircraft, how can they learn the much-needed skill?

A version of this article appears in the print on January 10, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.