aterpster:
Of course, but I was not referring to that but to all the small failures of the CAAN all along the report , some of them summarized in the Conclusions and safety recommendations pages in the end of the report :
From memory : ATIS not operating/ not daily checked , MET offfice not understating SPECI, , APP ATC not passing current Wx, , AIS issuing/cancelling AICs not understanding Airac Cycles, lack training courses for controllers , etc.. the 2 sets of coordinates for the threshold is only one small part. But again to be fair, what the CAAN did here is not much different from what is done in most of the poor other countries in the world.
In a fully developed country the airport would have been moved 20 Km East in the valley ( old plan) a long time ago. But lack of funds prevents it, now after the latest earthquake, this plan is moved decades again.
Back to this Tara Air accident : Domestic Air travel in Nepal is the only alternative to days of bus on treacherous roads in the country and the only way except walking, to reach some communities in the winter. Plus a lot of these small airlines make most of their money carrying tourists. Pressure to fly is great. The Pilots are good, some very good even, so it works most of the time, but the regulator is weak , very weak because aviation is a must, it brings desperately needed foreign currencies via the tourists and there is no alternative.