Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC)’s new Airbus A330-243 ‘Annapurna’ with registration ‘9N-ALY’ is grounded at Doha after a problem has been observed in one of the systems of the aircraft.
According to the source, the flight was scheduled to leave Qatar at 2:50 AM Local time and was supposed to land at Kathmandu at 10 AM in the morning. There were 247 passengers on board.
According to a corporation’s official, the crew pilot of the flight had mentioned an abnormality in the aircraft’s brake whereas a Qatar’s aircraft engineer has a showed problem in the indicator instead.
At present, Qatar’s aircraft engineer are inspecting Airbus A330 and is preparing to send it back to Nepal after completing the required repair and maintenance of the grounded aircraft.
After the aircraft has been grounded the passengers are facing a lot of problem. Airbus A330 has only completed 4 months after arrival and has faced technical glitch within shortest period. There has been long controversial on the topic of procuring process of two wide-bodies A330-243 series aircraft. However, it has not been clarified yet.
Previously, NAC published Press Release regarding the fallacious news published on various news media on procuring process of two wide-bodies A330-243 series aircraft. But after A330 ‘Annapurna” is grounded at Doha today, the issue is expected to rise again and may create a huge fire in aviation sector.
National flag carrier received its first wide-body aircraft A330-243 ‘Annapurna’ with registration ‘9N-ALY’ on June 28, 2018 as the aircraft touched down Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) at 8:10 am. The aircraft arrived from Toulouse, France under the command of two foreign pilots (Captain TRI Vinceno Termante and Flight Officer Joao Cesar Vieira-da Silva) from Hi Fly with 9 hours of flight time.
Airbus A330 “Annapurna” which started its commercial operation to Doha from 1st August 2018 and expanded its destination. Airbus A330 started commercial flights from TIA to Bangalore, India from August 16, 2018.
In April last year, NAC signed the final purchase agreement for two Airbus A330-200 long-range jets from US-based AAR Corp.
The $209.6-million contract is the largest-ever jet purchase deal in Nepal’s aviation history. The two A330-200s, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines, will feature a two-class cabin configuration that will seat a total of 274 passengers—18 in business class and 256 in economy class.
