The next time you sit on a plane standing on the runway and announce there is a malfunction – say thank you that you do not have to get off and push, as happened to the passengers of the Nara Tara Air flight. Watch the video that went viral
A video documenting passengers pushing a plane on a runway in a field in Nepal has gone viral. The unusual incident occurred on Wednesday after a Nepalese airline Tara Air was about to land at Jura airport in Nepal. During landing, one of the plane’s tires exploded, causing it to get stuck on the runway. Passengers who were supposed to take off from the field on the flight found themselves stuck – and decided to evacuate the plane, even if it meant rolling up their sleeves. A man who was at the scene filmed the unusual event, uploaded to his ticketing account – and the rest is history.
@kg974848 काेल्टि मा तारा एरोपेलेन को टायर पत्किदा यस्तो छ हालत पुरै प्यासेन्जर लागेर साइड गरेर पनि धनगढी मा आइयो। @kopilagiri30
An airline spokesman said after the runway cleared another company plane arrived with new tires and technical staff. After changing wheels the two planes set off safely.
Airports in Nepal are mainly characterized by breathtaking scenery that surrounds them on all sides and often in difficult conditions for the pilots – such as inaccessible location of the airport, sparse air due to the high altitude and short routes. Aircraft in this area are also an essential transportation artery not only for tourists and travelers, but also for the local population who use aircraft to get from point to point in the mountainous country where access to certain places is particularly difficult and sometimes not even possible.
One of these airports is in Jura which operates at an altitude of 4,300 feet which is about 1,300 meters. The small airport operates four local airlines that use small turbo prop aircraft that can land and take off safely from the airport’s short runway. In small, detached airports there is sometimes a shortage of operating equipment found in most “regular” airports around the world, and a combination of all these parameters has led to this amusing and unconventional incident.
At such a small airport there is usually no need for pushback vehicles (vehicles that push planes from place to place at airports) as these are small and light aircraft, and the field is built so that the planes can travel on their own and turn on the ground to turn towards parking or runway. But what do you do when a plane gets stuck and cannot move on its own? There do not seem to be many choices and need to be pushed.
The plane from the video is a “The Billand Canada Dash 6 Twin Otter” model, registered 9N-AEV, and this is not the first bizarre incident in which it has been involved. In 2012 the plane hit the bird during takeoff and the first officer was slightly injured. In 2018 the pilots made a “kangaroo landing” in which the plane skipped the runway, got off it and stopped only at the airport fence.