Repetitive crashes; continuous knocks on the door of safety
Kathmandu, 10 August 2016
Is this tragic crash trying to drag our attention towards some system seriously ill but unknown? Were the victims really destined to die in a helicopter crash they never expected to board in? After this trend of series of helicopter crashes shouldn’t the message be passed to everyone concerned? The technical part of the crash is another side of this incident but should we not be aware about the other major cause related with this type of tragic incidents that is bothering us time to time?
August 08, 2016 another black cloud of pain hovered aviation of Nepal. Different interpretations regarding pilot’s ability, aircraft’s age, meteorological conditions, technical aspects and etc. began to gain attentions at the peak in various news medias and public when a Fishtail Air’s helicopter AS350 B2 registered as 9N-AKA Kathmandu bound from Fidim, Gorkha crashed into a hill of Madanpur-9 of Nuwakot district just few kilometers away from Kathmandu claiming lives of all 7 people onboard including the Captain and a newly born 5 days old infant.
Most significantly, what needs to be remembered is an infant child and her mother who faced medical emergency post-delivery in a rural part of Nepal were being rescued by a private airliner of Nepal carrying the mother’s in laws and a nurse on board. The helicopter was not an air ambulance for it was just a chartered flight sent for a medical evacuation mission in exchange of a heavy price paid to the airliner company.
Transportation and Health facility are the prime things under basic human needs that are required to be fulfilled by government to its citizens. But faulty system of governance and various other forms always make us lag behind these facilities in Nepal. In absence of this health facility at their place, deprived of road transportation flooded by monsoon and availability of no air ambulance bounded the family of victims to take the flight with no other option to save the lives of the mother and infant eventually claiming life of 5 other innocents.
A proper focus of government towards providing basic health facilities to every corners of small country Nepal and air ambulances facilities standby in must emergency calls, dedicated doctors willing to serve the rural sectors too and properly constructed road facilities are something we can imagine for better Nepal where people form rural areas won’t be compelled to charter an expensive helicopter just to get a basic health treatment ultimately wasting their lives in it. Similarly, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and helicopter companies should focus on introducing the helicopters that can fly under Instrument Flight Rules and night conditions so that the air service would be uninterrupted, reliable and safer and only we can expect that this type of fatal crash will not occur again for the same reason in future. So this is the time we stop blaming each other and realize within ourselves the next lesson this crash has taught us and come together to build a better and safer Nepal.
