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Icao to send expert to improve airworthiness: Regulator
The International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) has agreed to send another expert to Nepal to help it deal with the ‘airworthiness’ issue, one of the eight critical elements of an effective safety oversight.The International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) has agreed to send another expert to Nepal to help it deal with the ‘airworthiness’ issue, one of the eight critical elements of an effective safety oversight.
Since July, an Icao expert has been assisting Nepal on the ‘operations’ front under Icao’s Safety Fund that aims to improve the safety of civil aviation globally. Nepal will contribute 25 percent of the $600,000 Safety Fund.
The move is aimed at removing Nepal from the list of nations having significant safety concern (SSC).
Nepal has been red-flagged on ‘operations’ among the eight critical elements of safety oversight by Icao due to a large number of aircraft accidents and incidents between 2009 and 2012, with at least two passenger planes crashing annually.
“The expert will assist Nepal for at least four months,” said Rajan Pokhrel, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan). Although Nepal has fared better on the ‘airworthiness’ front, the objective of inviting the expert is to synchronize operations and airworthiness, he said.
Meanwhile, Icao has urged Nepal to invite a re-validation mission by February next year. Icao monitors Nepal’s aviation safety oversight capabilities through the Icao Coordinated Validation Missions (ICVM). Nepal had planned to invite the re-validation mission in February 2015 to review the corrective action plan enforced to address safety deficiencies. However, the plan was pushed back to July 2016 and again to December this year.
“We are now well prepared for the re-validation mission,” said Pokhrel. He added that validation audits of Nepal Airlines and Himalaya Airlines had been completed.
“We have planned to conduct validation audits of Buddha Air and Shree Airlines by the third week of October,” he said. These two airlines also possess international flying licences.
Nepal had invited the ICVM in July 2013 to validate the corrective measures taken by Nepal to address deficiencies pointed out by the global aviation watchdog in 2009. The mission carried out an on-site audit from July 10-16.
Dissatisfied with Nepal’s progress, the global aviation watchdog had placed the SSC tag on Nepal’s aviation sector in its audit report in August 2014.
On December 5, 2013, before Icao’s audit report was released, the EC had imposed a blanket ban on all airlines from Nepal from flying into the 28-nation bloc, terming them unsafe.
Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Jeevan Bahadur Shahi raised the issue of Nepal and appealed for technical support to improve the aviation industry during the Icao World Aviation Forum held in Canada recently.
Shahi informed the forum that despite several efforts to ensure safety, Nepal was still facing the highest rate of accidents and incidents.
The objective of the forum is to identify needs, facilitate the funding and financing required to accelerate the implementation of international civil aviation global standards and policies in support of the ‘No Country Left Behind’ initiative, and to share information and best practices with a view to ensuring sufficient resources for sustainable aviation development.