KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 14

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the statutory regulator for civil aviation, despite its two-decades of existence, actually, has done little to address Nepal's commitments to the international aviation community, this daily's investigation has revealed.

The 70-year-old charter of international civil aviation, also called the Chicago Convention, mandates that all aircraft intending to fly must be issued a certificate of airworthiness by a competent state authority with which the aircraft is registered. In essence, the certificate is a state authorisation for flight by ensuring that the aircraft conforms to its initial design parameters and also incorporates any subsequent safety directives issued during its lifetime.

Provisions of Civil Aviation Regulations-2002 on issuance of certificate of airworthiness have bestowed this authority on CAAN director general. He has to do the needful after ensuring that the aircraft meets all the technical and legal requirements.

'However, strangely, this authority continues to be wrongly wielded by aviation safety inspectors,' an aviation safety expert explained.

'Mind you, regulations incorporate no provision to allow for delegation of this critical responsibility to any subordinate at the authority,' he added. However, since the beginning, a wrong precedent was set up, influenced by petty interests of aviation safety inspectors, some of who later rose to high positions at the authority.

Whenever, an airline operator wanted to acquire an aircraft, it would petition CAAN to depute an inspector to the foreign country from which the aircraft was to be acquired.

The eagerly-waiting inspectors would then hop on to the very next flight for the all-expenses paid trip by the operator. The inspector would then inspect the aircraft, its paperwork, often without any familiarisation with the aircraft type, and issue a certificate of airworthiness on the foreign soil. The director general, back home, would not even get to review the file, let alone sign it, clearly a breach of the regulation that resulted in the issuance of a 'fake certificate.' Ideally, the aircraft should have been flown in to Nepal on its foreign registration, and the transfer of certificates performed in Nepal after DG's vetting, as is the practice in reputed states.

With a foreign trip lasting at least two weeks, it became a lucrative incentive, as the per-diem would be thrice that of the official authority rates.

With inspectors earning oneyear salary in two weeks, it remains a no-holds barred fight, where, even directors general claimed a cut and would favour their protégés for such trips. This, really, is an instance of conflict of interest, where the inspector was under duress so as not to delay the paperwork and subsequently cause financial losses to their de-facto bosses -- the operators.

Interestingly, even when such aircraft got involved in accidents in the past, the investigation report would merely mention that the certificate of airworthiness was issued as per prevailing regulations.

'The primary reason for such a white lie getting currency was that former directors general would invariably head such investigation committees, and wanted the investigation to gloss over their soiled past,' the expert added.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 15, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.