KATHMANDU, Nepal — The instrument landing system at the airport where a plane was heading in Nepal was not yet operational, according to the civil aviation authority, days after the deadly accident.
So far, 71 bodies of the 72 people on board the flight have been found after the ill-fated Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu crashed with 68 passengers and four crew members on board.
The landing system at the new Pokhara airport was not supposed to be operational until the end of February, almost two months after the opening of the airport, a spokesman for Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority told dpa on Thursday.
Instrument landing systems help pilots land safely, especially in poor visibility and the systems are standard at large airports, according to Jan-Arwed Richter, founder and managing director of the aviation accident office Jacdec in Hamburg.
However, visibility did not appear to be poor when the aircraft crashed, according to videos of the incident.
Officials in Nepal are continuing to investigate the cause of the nation's deadliest airline crash.
They are being aided by experts from the French Air Accident Investigation Authority and the French-Italian manufacturer of the twin-engine regional jet, Avions de Transport Régional (ATR), a joint venture of Airbus and Leonardo, according to the French Embassy in Nepal.
The ATR 72-500 aircraft, operated by Nepal's Yeti Airlines, crashed on Sunday morning as it was preparing to land after the half-hour flight from the capital and Nepal's second-largest city.
Many travel to Pokhara to start trekking tours in the Himalayas, including to Annapurna, a popular hiking region.
Nepal has a poor aviation safety record, partly because many of the world's highest mountains are located there, including Mount Everest, and weather conditions can change quickly.
The EU also believes that safety oversight by the Nepalese aviation authorities is inadequate. Yeti Airlines has been blacklisted by the EU due to safety concerns.
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