Flights to and from the Everest region were briefly grounded yesterday following a bomb scare at the local airport, police said.
The alarm was raised at Lukla airport after a note was found on a piece of luggage indicating there was a bomb, airport official Tika
Shrestha said.
The airport was closed but a military bomb disposal squad dispatched from Kathmandu found no explosives.
“The rest of the flights will be cancelled for the day as investigation is under way,” Shrestha said.
“This is the start of the peak tourist season and we expect up to 12 flights to operate in a day, if the weather is
favourable.”
Lukla airport is the main airport used by visitors trekking to the Everest base camp. It is one of the world’s most dangerous airports due to the short runway length and high altitude of 2,860m, where the air is relatively thin.
The sloped runway is just 20m wide and 460m long - less than a tenth of the standard international runway length of 5,500m.
With no control tower, radar or navigation, pilots must rely on view and use their own judgment in order to land safely - there’s a 2.8km drop if they get it wrong. And there’s been a fair few accidents before.