A capable general manager should have been appointed to restructure the corporation, which is mired in billions of rupees of long-term debt and instability, and lead it on the path of reform. However, the government has appointed a controversial person to the selection committee.
As soon as Captain KB (Kul Bahadur) Limbu's name was associated with the Nepal Airlines Corporation, which was flying with a debt of 52 billion, everyone remembers the mysterious incident of the loss of a Boeing 757 fly-way tool kit worth 45 million rupees, the theft of a wheel (landing gear), and the recruitment of technicians with forged signatures, which tarnished the reputation of the corporation when he was the general manager two decades ago.
The reason why his name has come into the news once again is that Prime Minister Sushila Karki (who also holds the responsibility of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Culture), who is leading the interim government, appointed Limbu as an expert in the selection committee to appoint the General Manager of the Corporation last week.
The government had formed a selection committee to appoint a General Manager with managerial capacity to restructure the Corporation, which is trapped in the clutches of billions of rupees of long-term debt and instability, and lead it on the path of reform. But a senior captain said that the employees of the Corporation were unhappy with the appointment of a controversial person in the committee, and in particular, the selection of a person who is fighting a case with the Corporation. In fact, even high-level employees of the ministry are dissatisfied with Limbu's appointment. 'The name of the former governor was chosen by the ministry to select the leadership of the Corporation, but we were also surprised when Limbu's name came from the Prime Minister's Office,' the official said.
Before becoming the General Manager of the Corporation in 2064 BS, he was a pilot flying a Boeing 757 aircraft in the Corporation. In 2063 BS, he left his job at the Corporation and went to the UK on study leave. There, he worked in safety and management at UK International Airlines. In 2064 BS, after the establishment of democracy, the then Tourism Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung ‘offered’ him the position of General Manager. He left the UK and returned to Nepal. When he was made the General Manager of the Corporation, Sugatratna Kansakar, who was brought in from Telecom, was the Executive Chairman. The managerial conflict between the General Manager and the Executive began to surface. At the center of the conflict was the issue of sending the deposit amount in the Narrowband aircraft purchase case.
Aviation experts have considered it surprising that Limbu, who was accused of damaging the reputation of the Corporation, was appointed as an expert. Limbu had rejoined the corporation for the third time to fly a Chinese plane during the Covid pandemic. The then executive chairman Sushil Ghimire had appointed him on the condition of paying him Rs 1 million 96 thousand per month. His contract was in dispute after the Chinese plane crashed. A legal battle is ongoing between him and the corporation over the issue of not getting the facilities as per the contract.
The controversy surrounding Limbu is not the only one, recently he has also been accused of spreading various propaganda about the corporation. In the first week of Asoj, the corporation management had issued a statement warning him to 'take care of his official dignity'. In which he has been warned not to spread unnecessary propaganda that would tarnish the reputation of the corporation.
In a statement issued by Corporation Spokesperson Subash Dangi on October 20, 2005, Limbu was described as ‘contrary to the dignity of a former high-ranking officer of the Corporation, instead of taking ownership of the work done within the Corporation while he was in office, he did not receive the amount of Rs 8 million that was found to be illegal by the Honorable Supreme Court, and regrets the repeated baseless allegations against the Corporation by various media outlets.’
There are other incidents in which Limbu has been in controversy. On Chaitra 15, 2076, a Chinese aircraft of the Corporation, Y-12E, which took off from Kathmandu, crashed while landing at Nepalgunj Airport. The captain of the flight was KB Limbu. All three members of the crew of the charter flight that crashed were rescued alive. Both the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal and the Nepal Airlines Corporation formed separate accident investigation committees to investigate the accident. The investigation report of both concluded that the plane crash was not due to technical reasons but to human factors, pilot negligence, and violation of flight procedures. The investigation report states that during the landing, Limbu was supposed to 'shut down' the plane's left engine lever to 'low idle', and the fuel in the engine stopped and the left engine suddenly stopped, causing the plane to crash.
After the plane was not repairable in the accident, the corporation reimbursed the amount from the plane's insurance. And in this incident, the authority decided to cancel Limbu's flight license for one year. Limbu went to the Supreme Court to seek legal redress against this decision. After the Supreme Court overturned the authority's decision, he was acquitted. Before the authority received the full text of the Supreme Court's decision, he was appointed as an expert.
Limbu claimed that he accepted the offer after receiving two requests from the highest level of the current Council of Ministers over the phone. ‘I am going to stop the corruption practice in the corporation. Now Luciferians are trying to defame me again,’ Limbu told Kantipur on Wednesday, ‘I did not commit the previous incidents. In some incidents, I was abroad. When some items were lost, I was fighting the government in court. Those incidents were caused by the corrupt. They defamed me.’ He said that he had not read the report on the Chinese ship accident in Nepalgunj and accused the corporation and the authority of bias in the accident investigation report and found him guilty.
