-KATHMANDU
Nepal’s only EC-130 ‘9N-ALQ’ Helicopter was sold to the New-Zealand based company named Opportunity Unlimited as a scrap helicopter, announced Mountain Helicopters Pvt. Ltd, a private helicopter charter company of Nepal.
The Company officials however refused to disclose the price of the chopper sold.
The Helicopter had met an incident on September 25, 2016 after becoming airborne from Lukla Helipad and made a force landing at Jubing during medical evacuation mission. The helicopter was in command of Captain Suraj Thapa with four passengers on-board.
After three months of the crash, the wreckage was transported to Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) via MI-17 Helicopter of Shree Airlines with registration ‘9N-AHT’. The commander for the sling operation was a Turkmenistan pilot Captain Kolesnikov Vladimir and the aircraft landed safe at TIA on 11:05 NST and remained grounded for more than a year at the Eastern Helipad of TIA.
As per preliminary information, failure of engine had been suspected to be the major cause for the crash.
The Eurocopter EC-130 B4 is a single engine light helicopter manufactured by Airbus Helicopter manufacturer. The Helicopter was remanufactured earlier as AS350 Ecureuil from which primary changes were the adoption of a fenestron anti-torque device in place of a conventional tail rotor. It was launched and produced by the Eurocopter Group.
