Buddha Air flight diverted to Kathmandu unable to land Pokhara

Buddha Air flight U4605 (Kathmandu-Pokhara) that took off from Kathmandu could not land in Pokhara and had to return to Kathmandu this morning. The ATR-72 ‘9N-ANI’ took off Kathmandu Airport at 9:45 AM today, failed to land in Pokhara on Sunday morning and returned to Kathmandu one and half hour later.

There had been problems with landing due to increasing activities of Birds at Pokhara Airport, prompting flights to return to Kathmandu, as informed by Buddha Air. The aircraft made 8 holding patterns while the airport authority tried to clear the birds from the approach path and the runway. However, the approach path was not clear so the aircraft failed to land in Pokhara.

Pokhara International Airport sees a high bird activities in normal flight operation hours. There have been several bird strike incidents in the airport already. The reason for diversion was not due to the aircraft fault, but solely because the crew members opted for a safe operation by giving up the attempt to land in Pokhara runway with high bird activity.

Deependra Karna, the official spokesperson of Buddha Air, informed that passengers returning to Kathmandu were provided with information about the situation at Pokhara Airport and arranged a flight later to fly back to Pokhara.