Bangladesh aviation officials say air traffic controllers in Kathmandu could have averted US-Bangla plane crash

The Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) agrees with the findings of the Nepal investigators in the US-Bangla Airlines plane crash, but believes the probe report has not shed light on the “lack of efforts” by the air traffic control in Kathmandu to avert the disaster.

“The pilot had made some mistakes, but it would have been possible to avoid an accident such as this if the air traffic control had wanted,” CAAB Chairman M Naim Hassan told the media in Dhaka on Monday after the Nepalese authorities released the report.

As many as 27 of the 51 passengers and crew members who died in the crash of the flight BS 211 from Dhaka at the Tribhuvan International Airport on March 12 last year were Bangladeshis. Only 20 passengers survived the crash.

The Accident Investigation Commission formed by the Nepal government released its report on Sunday.

The investigators blamed the crew's loss of situational awareness for the crash of the flight.

The report says the captain of the aeroplane "seemed to have suffered an emotional breakdown".

The captain, Abid Sultan, was under stress and "emotionally disturbed" because he felt that a female colleague who was not on board the aircraft had questioned his reputation as a good instructor, according to the report.

"This, together with the failure on the part of both the crew to follow the standard operating procedure at the critical stage of the flight, contributed to the loss of situational awareness," it said.

A former Bangladeshi Air Force pilot, Abid had clocked more than 5,500 flying hours. He flew Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 planes, the same model that crashed in Nepal, for over 1,700 hours.

US-Bangla Airlines had earlier said Abid, who had landed more than 100 times on the mountainous Kathmandu airport, had received ‘wrong’ signal from the air traffic control (ATC) tower at the airport.

Buddhisagar Lamichhane, a member of the Nepalese investigation panel, however, told Reuters, "The pilot thought he could manoeuvre the aircraft and land. But he could not."

CAAB Chairman Naim, flanked by Flight Operation Consultant Salauddin M Rahmatullah, who represented Bangladesh in the Nepalese investigation commission, and Md Kamrul Islam, a general manager and spokesperson for US-Bangla, briefed the media after receiving the report.

Rahmatullah said there is no wrong information in the Nepalese commission report, but it excluded “some information” on the role of the ATC in the crash.

“The commission one-sidedly blamed the pilot. It said he had made mistakes and finally landed without aligning the aircraft. But we’ve found in further investigations that the ATC had enough scope to ask the pilot to fly away. It could have said, ‘Just go around, climb up and we will let you know’,” he said.

“The accident would not have happened only if the ATC had said, ‘You climb up and we will guide you’,” he said, after adding that the sky was clear and there was no other problem for landing at the time.

Naim said it was “natural” for a pilot to make mistakes in the cockpit, but a controller should never make such mistake.

“No matter how skilled a pilot is, the ATC will control them. They are bound to follow the ATC’s instructions,” he said.

The southern end of the lone runway of the Tribhuvan International Airport is identified as Runway 02 while the northern end is Runway 20.

Many aviation experts said the last four minutes’ conversation indicated there might have been confusion in the cockpit over the runway.

“At times it was found that ATC were confused on pronouncing landing RWY 02 or 20, though this did not seem to have significant impact on the fate of flight,” the Nepalese commission said in the report.

“ATC at Kathmandu tried their best to assist the PIC providing landing opportunity at any Runway in convenience of the PIC and ensuring the airspace clear to avoid further conflict with other aircraft and US-Bangla,” it added.

It also said the Air Traffic Control Officers were not provided with refresher training at regular interval.

“When the runway was cleared by the previous landing aircraft, sighting the unusual manoeuvre of the BS211, ATC cleared to land either at RWY 02 or 20 and asked to the aircraft whether it needs VECTOR service or not ? BS211 did not confirm it, but communicated to ATC regarding its intention to land at RWY 20 and at the moment ATC immediately cleared the aircraft to land RWY20.

“After that ATC reconfirmed again whether the RWY was in sight or not, immediately the PIC replied ‘Affirmative, we have RWY insight, request clearance to land sir.’ ATC immediately replied ‘BS211 clear to land’ and the PIC acknowledged the clearance.

“As per CVR then after there was no two way communication between ATC and PIC. When the aircraft made a very steep turn at very low height over the domestic hanger and was passing its heading towards the tower building the tower controllers ducked down the console with fear,” according to the report.

“As per the many eye witnesses also the aircraft was making dangerous flight over the domestic apron and taxi area at very low heights without proper alignment with the RWY 20 and ultimately touched down at the edge of the runway and overrun towards the downslope grass field and crashed,” it added.

Naim said it was the ATC’s duty to alert the pilot about the ‘missed approach’ when it saw the landing gear was not properly opened.

“The ATC could have guided the pilot to the approach with the help of the radar. It’s the controller’s failure,” he said.  

He also said no-one can be solely blamed for any accident.

“Many factors work in accidents. Some mistakes create a complete mistake. The accident could have been averted if the ATC wanted,” he added.

Asked about captain Abid smoking in the cockpit, bdnews24.com reported, Rahmatullah said the ban on smoking in aircraft is “mainly for health and security reasons”.

“But smoking is not the reason behind the US-Bangla accident. The accident would not have happened if the controller were a bit more aggressive (assertive),” he added.

He also alleged that the commission added 80 per cent observations made by the two Bangladeshi representatives, but dropped 20 per cent.

“We’ve noticed that many things related to the pilot have been mentioned, but the ATC-related issues have been totally avoided,” he added.

He also said the Bangladesh authorities would appeal to the Nepalese commission to add the dropped observations to the report.

If the Nepalese authorities do not respond to the appeal positively, Bangladesh would file a complaint with the International Civil Aviation Organization or ICAO, he added.