Suman Pradhan is right to be careful about monsoon flights ('No-fly season', #318). But in remote areas there is no other option and people, usually in need of urgent medical attention, have to fly despite the risk and expense.
As a former aircraft crew member, I know you can have your pick of who to blame for crashes: bad weather, old aircraft, the marketing or engineering department, crew, passengers.

Passengers refuse to believe the weather at their destination is bad if it is okay in Kathmandu, and start fisticuffs when they hear about cancellations. So-called educated passengers do this as much as anyone else.

Aircraft are often poorly maintained because delays caused by proper procedure-even when there is a technical problem-are unacceptable to passengers who pressure marketing personnel.

Pilots fly in bad weather because of ego problems. If they hear of a junior captain who flew safely in bad conditions, they want to top that.

Once airborne, passengers refuse to fasten their seatbelts, saying expansively that they 'fly regularly'. In bad weather, their heads hit the roof and they even fall to the floor, but they continue to believe that seatbelts are restraints, not safety measures.

Shhradhaa Malla,
email

. Suman Pradhan dismisses 'new-fangled technology' and 'latest gizmos', but aviation technology has in fact evolved and become reliable.

Had GPS been commercially available in 1992, the Thai and PIA jets probably wouldn't have crashed. The mid-air collision involving a Russian airliner and a DHL cargo jet over southern Germany four years ago happened when the Russian plane's pilot disregarded the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System's warning to climb, and instead descended following the air traffic controller's instructions.

Pradhan also misses the human factor. Seventy percent of all air disasters occur due to flight crew error and five percent due to other human error (air traffic control, improper loading, poor maintenance), 13 percent because of mechanical failures, and just seven percent due to weather. The rest is either undetermined or due to causes such as bombs, hijacking, or shootdowns.

The human error factor in Nepal is likely higher than the world average. Aircraft operate without airworthiness certification, pilots with dubious qualifications from fly-by-night schools get licenses, and operators compromise on maintenance to meet all the competition and cost cutting.

Subodh S Pal,
Lagankhel