Nepal's Buddha Airlines plane returns to Kathmandu following tehcnical snag

Kathmandu, Jun 1 (PTI) A Buddha Airlines plane that took off from Nepal's Kathmandu to Bhadrapur on Wednesday returned back to the airport here following a technical snag, according to a media report.

The aircraft that took off from Tribhuvan International Airport here returned after realising that there was a problem with the plane's tyres, Nepal's MyRepublica news website cited the Civil Aviation Office at the airport as saying.

According to a Civil Aviation official, the plane took off from Kathmandu at 10:43 am and returned to the airport soon after, the report said.

He added that an investigation into the matter was underway, the report said.

The incident comes days after a Tara airline plane carrying four Indians, two Germans and 13 Nepali passengers, besides a three-member Nepali crew, crashed in Nepal's mountainous Mustang district, minutes after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara.

According to preliminary investigation carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the Canadian-built turboprop Twin Otter 9N-AET plane crashed on Sunday at an altitude of 4,200 metres due to bad weather conditions.

Nepal being a mountainous country, the weather condition is always fluctuating and it is difficult to operate a flight in the mountain region without a proper weather forecasting mechanism.

Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record of air accidents.

On Tuesday, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal tightened rules governing domestic flights and made it mandatory for airlines to have clear weather throughout the route of a flight.