After a fatal crash, Nepal bans ‘non-essential’ helicopter flights for two months
Nepal’s aviation authority has prohibited helicopters from doing “non-essential” flights, including sightseeing flights, after five Mexican tourists and a Nepali pilot perished in a helicopter accident while returning after seeing Himalayan peaks, including Mount Everest. Prior to the most recent incident, 350 people have died in 18 aviation crashes since 2000 throughout the nation.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) announced on Twitter late on Wednesday that non-essential flights, such as mountain flights, external load operations (sling flights), and helicopter flower-showering, would be limited till September.
In Nepal, helicopter crashes
Air disasters have occurred in the Himalayan country, which is home to eight of the world’s fourteen highest mountain peaks, including Mount Everest. This is because many airlines fly to tiny airports in outlying hills and close to peaks that are often cloaked in clouds.
All 72 passengers of an ATR 72 operated by Yeti Airlines perished in the Pokhara tragedy in January 2023. Since a Pakistan International Airlines jet crashed in Kathmandu in 1992, killing 167 people, the tragedy was Nepal’s worst aviation disaster.
22 people were killed when a Yeti unit Tara Air De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter crashed in May 2022, 15 minutes after takeoff from Pokhara.
In poor weather in eastern Nepal in February 2019, a helicopter crashed, killing all seven persons inside, including the tourism minister.
In March 2018, a helicopter that was coming in to land at the hill-ringed airport in the Nepalese capital crashed in overcast weather, killing 51 of the 71 persons aboard a Bangladeshi plane operated by US-Bangla Airlines.
