KATHMANDU : The European Union (EU)’s team that was planning to travel to Nepal for undertaking an ‘on-site evaluation’ of aviation safety has put off its plan.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said that the planned visit of the EU’s technical team has been postponed for now.

Issuing a joint statement on Friday, Director-General of the CAAN Pradeep Adhikari and EU’s Ambassador for Nepal Nona Deprez said that the scheduled Nepal visit of the on-site evaluation team has been put off for now.

According to CAAN Spokesperson Jagannath Niraula, EU’s Nepal visit has been adjourned on mutual consensus as the human resource of the CAAN has to be deployed for the task of the probe commission formed to investigate the crash of the Yeti Airlines plane in Pokhara on January 15.

Earlier in October last year, a team of the EU had undertaken a study on the aviation safety of Nepal and drew a conclusion that notable progress had been made in air safety.

The team had returned with a decision to send another team to carry out on-site evaluation of the aviation safety of Nepal.

In the statement, the EU has clarified that it would continue its support to Nepal for aviation safety. The EU has listed Nepal in the air safety list since 2013. Nepal has made several efforts to get removed from the list.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)’s recent audit has assessed Nepal’s aviation safety compliance rate to be 70.1 percent.

(RSS)