Plane at Kathmandu Airport Wrong Turn Away, Fueled by Miscommunication?
Kathmandu - "I say again, back !," it was a call coming from the air traffic control center on the radio to the pilot.
The staff's voice was rising as the US-Bangla Airlines plane swerved as it flew low over the runway at Kathmandu's small airport on Monday 12 March 2018.
Seconds later, the plane crashed into the field beside the runway and burned great. A total of 50, of the 71 people in the iron bird, were killed.
Before the incident, there was a brief dialogue between control towers and US-Bangla aircraft pilots.
They discussed which direction the pilot should choose to land his plane safely.
Radio conversations between controlling towers and at least one airplane pilot triggered allegations of miscommunication, as quoted by ABCNews.go.com quoting the Associated Press on Tuesday (13/3/2018).
In the recording, released by the liveatc.net air traffic monitoring website, the pilot and the tower were heard repeatedly trying to ascertain whether the pilot should approach the runway from the north or south.
Just before the landing, the pilot asked, "Can we make a landing?"
However, moments later, a suspected voice came from the tower. The person's tone sounded anxious as he told the pilot.
"I say again, back!" Seconds after that sentence, the control tower ordered a fire truck at standby, heading for the runway.
Shortly thereafter, the aircraft from the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, headed to Kathmandu, carrying 67 passengers and four crewmen, wretched on the runway.
Kathmandu officials and Bangladeshi airlines also blame each other for the accident.
General Manager of the airport told reporters, the pilot allegedly did not follow the instructions of the control tower and approached the runway from the wrong direction.
"The aircraft was not on par with the runway, the controller repeatedly asked whether the pilot was okay and the answer was 'Yes'," said Kathmandu Airport GM Raj Kumar Chetri.
But Imran Asif, the CEO of US-Bangla Airlines, said different things to reporters in Dhaka. "We can not claim for sure at the moment, but we suspect that the Kathmandu air traffic control tower may have misled our pilot to land on the wrong runway."
After hearing the tape between the tower and the pilot, Asif added, "we assume that there is no negligence by our pilot," he said.
He said the pilot, who initially survived the plane crash, breathed his last of the wounds he suffered on Tuesday. The pilot was a former air force officer.
The pilot, Captain Abid Sultan has been flying the Bombardier Q400 series for over 1,700 hours and also a flying instructor at the airline.
Before the accident, the plane circled Tribhuvan International Airport twice while waiting for a landing permit, said Mohammed Selim, the airline's manager in Kathmandu, told Somoy TV based in Dhaka.
Police spokesman Manoj Neupane said on Tuesday that 50 people had been confirmed killed by the plane crash. Meanwhile, 22 others were injured.
The wounded were treated at hospitals in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital.
The bodies of the Victims are Incomplete
Autopsies on the bodies are conducted at the Kathmandu Medical College hospital, where about 200 relatives wait to hear the news of their loved ones.
Dr. M.A Ansari from the hospital forensic department said the identification of the death toll could take as long as a week because many bodies were badly burned. On Tuesday morning, only four bodies were identified.
Relatives of passengers from Bangladesh arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday night and were escorted to the hospital by airline officials.
The government of Nepal has ordered an investigation into the accident. However, Mohammed Kamrul Islam, a spokesman for US-Bangla Airlines, said that the Nepalese and Bangladeshi governments need to "launch a fair investigation and find the reason behind the accident."
According to the airline, the aircraft carried 32 passengers from Bangladesh, 33 from Nepal and each from China and the Maldives. However, they do not inform citizenship of the four crew members.
The US-Bangla operates the Boeing 737-800 and the smaller Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft, including Q400, the wretched airplane model on the Kathmandu airport runway.
The airline is based in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, and serves domestic and international routes. The parent company, part of the US-Bangla Group, also does business in real estate, the education sector, and agriculture.
Kathmandu Airport has been the scene of several deadly accidents. In September 2012, a Sita Air turboprop plane carrying climbers to Mount Everest hit a bird and crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 19 people inside.
