Nepal Tightens Rules For Flights After Deadly Plane Crash

Nepal, a country often referred to as one of the world's riskiest places to fly, has had a fraught record of aviation accidents, partly due to its sudden weather changes and airstrips located in mountainous terrain.

Nepal on Tuesday tightened flight permit rules for airlines by making it mandatory to have clear weather throughout the route, after a preliminary investigation indicated that bad weather was the main cause of Sunday's plane crash in the Himalayan nation's mountainous Mustang district that killed all 22 people on board.

So far, Nepal's aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), has been issuing permits to airlines if weather conditions at the source and destination airports are okay. But, from now onwards, the en-route weather conditions of the flight will also be looked into.

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

The new provision is applicable to all flights following the Visual Flight Rules.