Investigation affected as probe team fails to locate equipment

Kathmandu, April 9

The government-initiated probe on the crash of a chopper carrying late tourism minister Rabindra Adhikari has been affected as a majority of the chopper minimum equipment lists (MELs), which are crucial to find out accident details, were destroyed in the ensuing fire after the crash. The flight recorder, satellite tracker, satellite phone, boreal laser, flight data monitoring, aerodyne systems including other electronic equipment are installed in a helicopter that help in getting details of flights.

However, the probe committee has faced difficulties in identifying the equipment as the chopper was destroyed nearly completely during the crash.

“Flight recorder is one of the crucial equipment in the chopper that could give us all the details of the accident but we have not been able to locate it yet,” said Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

Currently, the probe committee led by former tourism secretary Yagya Prasad Gautam is conducting an investigation on the incident. However, the failure to identify the equipment has affected the probe. Lamichhane further said that the investigation had already been affected initially as the investigation committee could not reach the accident area due to heavy snowfall.

“The accident area was very difficult to reach. Moreover, heavy snowfall obstructed us from reaching the site soon after the chopper crashed,” he said, “Since we were late in reaching the accident site we could not get hold of the required equipment as they were destroyed by the fire.”

As per Lamichhane, the concerned equipment in helicopters are not fire resistant like in planes, so investigation becomes much more difficult.

He, however, said that the committee is working in a fullfledged manner over the issue.

“The number of equipment that we were able to retrieve from the accident site are not enough to obtain the accident details. So, we might have to visit the crash site again for more investigation,” he said, adding, “We cannot say anything about the accident until we are able to find the flight recorder.”

Amid this, a team that had arrived from France to assist the probe committee in the investigation has also returned as they could not locate the flight recorder.

A chopper of Air Dynasty carrying late tourism minister Adhikari along with six other passengers had crashed on February 27 while returning from Taplejung. Although the inclement weather at the time has been assumed to be the major cause of the accident, nothing can be said in concrete about the incident at the moment until the investigation is completely over.