Finance
A team of experts from the French aerospace company ATR has launched an investigation into the causes of the plane crash in Nepal’s Pokahara.
According to the District Administration Office, Kaski, a team of French experts has arrived at the crash site and begun an initial investigation.
Suresh Adhikari, Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, stated, “After the plane crash, all stakeholders in the country and abroad have shown keen interest.”
There are 11 foreign experts in total, four from the French government’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), which is in charge of investigating aviation accidents and incidents.
Similarly, six are from ATR, a Franco-Italian joint venture headquartered in Blagnac, France, and one expert from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), an agency of the European Union (EU) responsible for civil aviation safety.
They travelled to Pokhara on Tuesday evening and were accompanied by another 11-member Nepali team — five of whom were from the investigation commission formed by the Nepal government.
“The experts will support Nepal’s investigation team,” said Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint secretary at the Civil Aviation Ministry.
According to him, the commission has received both the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR).
“We will examine the CVR in Kathmandu, while the FDR will be sent abroad as we don’t have the facility to examine the recording here,” according to Lamichhane. “We have not yet decided to which country we should send FDR.”
“The foreign experts will make safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations,” said Lamichhane.
Lamichhane is a member secretary of the government-led investigation committee.
The expert team will inspect the scene and speak with the officials involved in the flights to determine the cause of the accident.
The crash of an ATR plane in Nepal is the first of its kind.
Following the plane crash, the government established a five-member accident investigation commission, which will be coordinated by former secretary Nagendra Ghimire.
According to Jagannath Niraula, spokesperson for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, the voice recorder would be analyzed locally, but the flight data recorder would be sent to France.
71 bodies have been recovered from the crash site so far. One is still missing.
When the plane was about to land at Pokhara International Airport, it crashed into a cliff along the famous Seti River.
According to aviation experts, the plane was flown by two experienced pilots with little weather and technical issues.
According to Kathmandu experts, the accident was a terrible disaster because the plane crashed in clear weather for no apparent reason.
Three infants, three children, and 62 adults were among the passengers.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the passengers included 53 Nepalis, five Indians, four Russians, one Irish, one Australian, one Argentinian, two Koreans, and one French.
The whereabouts of one missing passenger are unknown, while the bodies of 22 people killed in the plane crash have been handed over to their family and relatives, according to the District Administration Office, Kaski.
The bodies of 48 people were brought to Kathmandu for post-mortem examination because their bodies are difficult to identify and require a DNA test.
Because some of their bodies could not be identified, it is expected that they will be returned to the families and relatives of the deceased after DNA identification.
Source:OCN
