BSS-49 CAAB attributes US-Bangla crash to Kathmandu ATC failure

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CAAB attributes US-Bangla crash to Kathmandu ATC failure

DHAKA, Jan 28, 2019 (BSS) – Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) today attributed the last year’s deadly US-Bangla crash in Kathmandu to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) failure at Tribhuvan International Airport as the Nepalese authorities released its investigation report trying to highlight only the pilot’s role.

“US-Bangla air crash at Kathmandu in last year could be avoided if the ATC tower there gave proper instruction to the pilot,” CAAB Chairman Air Vice Marshal M Naim Hassan told a media briefing.

He added: “We are neither differing with the report nor saying that it is wrong. We are just saying that the Nepalese authority avoided part of their ATC role in the report.”

The CAAB chairman said Bangladesh representative in the investigation team found that ATC had acted slowly and the crash could have been avoided if the pilot received proper and timely instructions from the control tower.

CAAB called the media briefing at its headquarters hours after the Nepal Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission released their report on the March 12, 2018 crash killing 51 people, claiming that the accident took place due to “human error” but acknowledged that there was no technical glitch in the aircraft.

The CAAB said the report evaded the airport’s ATC inefficiency and tended to attribute the tragedy to the pilot’s error.

At the briefing, Captain Salahuddin M Rahmatullah, who represents Bangladesh in the investigation team, said there was a mistake from the part of the pilot, but if the ATC had addressed it properly then that mistake could have been corrected, he added.

He said the pilot was disoriented and got a misleading approach during the landing and he could have easily made a go around, but “he didn’t get any such instruction from the ATC”.

Salahuddin said CAAB made some additional recommendations from Bangladesh side regarding the role of ATC and requested the Nepal authority to publish the recommendations at the annex of the report.

“If the Nepal authorities do not publish our recommendations in their report, we will lodge a complaint with the International Civil Aviation Authority,” he said.

According to the report, compiled by Nepali officials, the probable cause of the crash was the pilot’s disorientation and loss of situation awareness.

This loss of situational awareness indulged the pilot into some dangerous maneuver of aircraft at very low altitude in the hilly and mountainous terrain around the airport.

Having missed the runway, the crew was flying very low north of it in an incorrect position near hilly and mountainous terrain around the airport, it said adding that “Finally, when the crew sighted the runway, they were very low and too close to and not properly aligned.”

After impact on the ground the uncontrolled aircraft ran out of the runway, hit the runway perimeter fence and rolled down the slope into the grass field and caught fire which engulfed the aircraft, the report added.

The CAAB’s observations, that have been already requested to add with the report, said the Nepalese ATC did not properly suggest the pilot to take help from radar vector of the tower to climb up instead of landing.

It said in a disoriented manner, when the aircraft was making very low maneuvers inside the valleys in dangerous way, the supervisor controller kept quiet and continued to observe the nightmare until at one time he announced that the landing clearance was cancelled.

Thereafter, it said when the aircraft made a very steep turn at very low height over the domestic hanger and was passing its heading through the tower building during, the tower controllers ducked down out of fear.

Seeing the aircraft’s dangerous maneuvers at very low heights over the apron and taxi track areas while the pilot was trying to position the aircraft in line with the runway, the supervisor controller remained numb and did not provide any positive evasive instruction to the aircraft from being crash, CAAB’s observation said.

BSS/ASG/TA/MMA/2200hrs