After the emergency door opened and the 'slide' came out, 42 passengers were left in Kuala Lumpur and the corporation's widebody returned to Kathmandu.
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Before every flight, the cabin crew informs the passengers about the emergency doors and warns them not to open them unnecessarily. Because those doors are only for emergency situations where the main door of the ship cannot be exited.
On December 12, the first emergency door on the right side of a Nepal Airlines Corporation narrowbody plane returning to Kathmandu from Malaysia opened for no reason. At the same time, the 'slide' also opened. The 'slide' is used to evacuate passengers during emergency landings. Once removed, the 'slide' cannot be reused and a new one must be fitted. According to an official of the corporation, another 'slide' has been placed on the ship by spending around 3 million.
Since the flight can only be carried out after repairing the door, the corporation's office in Malaysia took the help of the technical team at the Kuala Lumpur airport for that. The technical team repaired the door without the 'slide'. As one of the emergency doors did not have a 'slide', the corporation's ship flew to Kathmandu with 42 passengers leaving Kuala Lumpur to improve flight safety and balance of the ship. The ship came with 110 passengers that day. The flight was delayed by 4 hours because the door had to be repaired.
According to the provisions of ship manufacturing companies and International Aviation Organization (ICAO), there are four emergency doors on narrow-body ships. If one of these doors is not in the same condition, then the number of passengers can be reduced by the same ratio. So 42 passengers were left in Kuala Lumpur. "Passengers who were left behind bought tickets on other planes and were brought to Nepal after 3/4 days," said an official of the corporation. "That cost more than 2 million rupees."
Captain Bhavna Pant was responsible for bringing the narrow body ship to Kathmandu that day. She had reached Kuala Lumpur from Kathmandu sitting in the passenger seat that day. She was flying back without resting there. Pant, who was on the ship when the emergency door was opened, reported that the ground staff cleaning the ship may have opened the emergency door.
A 5-member committee has been formed on December 14 to investigate the incident under the coordination of the corporation's engineer, Sathya Gyawali. Engineers Upendra Poudel, Pawan Kumar Karwal, Senior Captain Rabindrapurush Dhakal and Raman Ghimire are members of the committee. The committee is investigating a technical assistance company based in Malaysia. The corporation has said that the involvement of cleaning staff will be paid and action will be taken according to the law.
Meanwhile, the corporation's widebody plane is revealed to have survived a major crash. The plane was returning to Kathmandu from New Delhi, India on December 28. Makalu widebody took off from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport at 6:30 Nepali time with 188 passengers.
Instructor pilot Vijay Lama was in command of the ship in the cockpit. Amulyaratna Shakya was the co-pilot along with Lama who had flown the ship for 38 years. The ship's speed, pitch, altitude were fine. The flaps worked together with the powered wings to increase the ship's lift. The ship had not reached 10,000 feet. Before the aircraft reached a certain altitude, the pilot suddenly pulled back the flaps. This affected the ship's performance.
A problem with the aircraft's stability was observed. There was a change in the 'aerodynamic' of the ship. Unnecessary stress on the engine. Sudden load changes in aircraft structure. This increased the risk to flight safety. The crew handled the situation after the system in the widebody's cockpit signaled it. With that the ship picked up natural speed. And, a big accident happened.
The corporation formed a committee headed by Senior Captain Rabindrapurush Dhakal on December 7 to investigate the incident. The committee has recommended that additional training should be given to the co-pilots on the said flight along with Llama. The committee pointed out lack of communication and coordination among flight crew members, not effectively monitoring speed during peak workload, non-adherence to Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) norms. The
committee also noted that the pilot may have a 'somatogravic illusion' (sensory illusion). During the flight, the brain can't coordinate the external environment and the inside of the cockpit and interpret it incorrectly is called 'somatogravic illusion'. Due to such confusion, the pilot cannot take the right decision. Sensory hallucinations occur due to mental pressure, fatigue, stress or other reasons during flight or other sensitive activities.
Pilot Lama has committed to the investigation committee to pay attention to the flight time in the future, be more alert and follow the checklist. The Flight Safety Standards Department, a regulatory body under the Civil Aviation Authority, is also investigating the incident. The investigation officer of the department informed that both the captain and the co-pilot involved in the flight were grounded.
According to that officer, who is also a pilot, there is a standard for how fast a ship flying at an altitude below 10,000 feet should maintain. But when the flaps were working and they were closed before the ship reached a certain height, the speed of the ship increased excessively. It could have affected other ships in front or it could have gone down like a vakundo," he said.
The issue of Malaysia and Delhi incident has also reached the Parliament's International Relations and Tourism Committee. Last Tuesday, UML MP Sunita Baral asked the executive chairman of the corporation, Yuvraj Adhikari, to clarify about the negligence in the Delhi flight. The executive chairman did not respond to this.
