• GUNA AIRLINES MID-AIR INCIDENT
KATHMANDU, JANUARY 22
A secretary level decision of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation formed a committee to probe the mid-air opening of Guna Airlines' cabin door earlier this week.
However, the statement regarding formation of the committee doesn't refer to any regulatory basis for the decision, making the announcement appear more farcical than substantial, according to a former director general of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, who requested anonymity.
Aviation, by virtue of its anti-gravity nature, involves risks that have to be managed by regulations, procedures and technology, and seeks to improve safety level by learning from past occurrences.
This, in fact, is the basis on which the ICAO mandates a thorough investigation of accidents characterised by injury to humans or damage to the aircraft, as well as serious incidents characterised by situations where an accident nearly occurred. The recent case can be classified as a serious incident technically, the former DG explained.
The prevailing regulations on aviation accident investigations, 2071, under rule 22, authorises the ministry to investigate serious incidents apart from authorising the CAAN DG to compile a preliminary technical report on the incident. However, for any such investigation to be deemed objective and free of prejudice, the composition of the team itself has to be above reasonable doubt.
"Apart from forgoing the inclusion of a qualified aeronautical engineer at hand in the ministry while constituting the probe committee and allowing a sitting CAAN aviation safety inspector to head the team comprising two other CAAN inspectors directly responsible for safety oversight of airlines, the team has the unenviable task at hand of saving its reputation amidst the glaring conflict-of-interest scenario," another airline executive remarked.
The world over, for an effective safety investigation, the regulators are also perceived to be party of interest, by independent accident investigators.
Since airline activities, both maintenance as well as operations, are carried out under direct oversight of aviation safety inspectors, involving them in the investigation may give the observers reasons to doubt the independence of the very investigation process, more so, when the ICAO audit team is literally at Nepal's doorsteps to assess the improvements in the aviation system in the past decade. "They are more likely to be dismayed with such continued lackadaisical approach that hasn't improved even in 12 years," he added.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 23, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
