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Agni Airliner Plane Crashes Killing 15 Passengers In Nepal
By KTM Metro Reporter
May 14, 2012: the Dornier aircraft carrying 16 Indian pilgrims to Muktinath, two Danish tourists, two Nepalese pilots and one attendant went head down just before landing at the Jomsom airport at 9:45 AM today and crashed at mud hill next to the airport instantly killing 13 Indian pilgrims including one priest working for three temples in Chennai.
According to the media report, the pilot had called the Pokhara tower and told that he could not land the plane at the Jomsom airport due to the technical problem; so he is diverting the plane back to Pokhara.
The injured have been treated at Manipal Hospital in Pokhara. Some of them have been discharged. One Indian seriously injured has been out of danger according to the local media report.
The chartered plan was flying from tourist town Pokhara in the mid hill to the mountain market town Jomsom from where the pilgrims were supposed to walk to Muktinath: the Hindu God called Vishnu situated at 14,000 feet high. Jomsom is at 10,000 feet.
From 9AM to 4PM, a strong wind flow along the narrow cut made by the Kaligandaki River known as Thak Khola in Jomsom. As the sun rises, the atmospheric pressure in the Muktinath area goes down causing the southern wind rush to the north at high speed. So, most of the regular aircrafts flying back and forth to Jomsom complete their flights before 9 AM, as they would not be able to land and take off planes after 9 AM due to the strong wind flowing from south to north.
In the past, the local media had reported that the Nepalese private airlines companies coerce pilots to take risk. So, it seems that the unfortunate aircraft attempting to land after 9 AM at Jomsom was certainly taking risk that had been too much for the crew that had made a suicidal attempt to land at Jomsom killing so many passengers.
The government of Nepal needs to regulate the private airlines not to force their pilots to take such a deadly risk. Airlines companies could not make money taking such deadly risk rather would lose their credibility and certainly the revenue, too.
