Nepal’s flying doctor

Bhogendra Kathayat successfully defended his PhD thesis at Tribhuvan University, and the very next night he was at Tribhuvan International Airport. 

No, not to emigrate, but to captain a Nepal Airlines Airbus A330 on a 7-hour flight to Narita. Capt Kathayat, 41, is now the only PhD airline pilot in Nepal, and one of a handful actively flying internationally.

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Born in the village of Sanischare in Morang to a farming family, it was a hard life. Money was always short, and the four siblings went to a village school with mud floors. 

Kathayat excelled in his studies, earning a scholarship after topping the entrance exam out of 1,000 students for admission into Tri Chandra College in Kathmandu. Always good in maths, he passed his MSc in Physics with flying colours – which may be why he took up flying next.

This was 2006, the conflict had just ended, and Nepal Airlines announced a scheme for pilot training. His parents did not have the collateral to afford the Rs3.4 million loan to pay for flight school. But Kathayat managed to borrow from relatives, and was off to Kota Bahru in Malaysia. 

When he returned after a year to join Nepal Airlines, Kathayat was flying Twin Otters but did not even have a driving license because he could not afford a car or motorcycle. He was a Himalayan bush pilot for the next seven years, flying in challenging weather and terrain to remote airfields carved out of mountainsides. 

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In 2015, Nepal Airlines bought two Airbus A320s, and Capt Kathayat was off to Toulouse – leaping straight from Twin Otters to twin jets. But it was easier for him than for colleagues who had been flying 757s, because Boeing and Airbus have different philosophies of flying.

After being on 320s for three years, Kathayat upgraded to the bigger Airbus A330s, but still does not have a car license and arrived for this interview in a Honda Unicorn.

“Although I felt like aviation was in my blood, there was this nagging sense that my education was incomplete,” Capt Kathayat recalls.

Meeting Nepal’s foremost atmospheric scientist Arnico Panday on a flight, he was convinced that Nepal needed more scientific research into air pollution. Since Panday is an aviation buff himself, they devised a way to use decades of visibility data from Nepal’s airports to come up with policy-level solutions to improve aviation safety as well as public health.

Capt Kathayat used long layovers in Dubai, Doha and Tokyo to pore over historical airport data from Bhairawa and Kathmandu to look into how domestic and crossborder pollution sources, humidity, or aerosols affected the optical property of suspended particulates. He also analysed seasonal and time of day variations.

The results were predictable: the number of days with heavy smog in Kathmandu increased steeply after 2000. The days when planes could land under visual flight rules (VFR) had gone down in Bhairawa, especially as winter fog had become thicker, more frequent and long-lasting. 

Kathayat’s PhD thesis also carries recommendations. Bhairawa may not always be useful as an alternate airport for big jets in winter because it is fogged up when Kathmandu visibility is also below minima. Bhairawa will need a Cat II Instrument Landing System (ILS). 

The long-term solutions are to control pollution at source, and in Kathmandu that means vehicular emission, open garbage fires, cross residue burning, and in Bhairawa reducing industrial and crop burning. But for both airports, visibility will remain marginal unless pollution is controlled in north India.

Capt Kathayat’s PhD adviser, Arnico Panday who is also a member of the opposition RSP, is a proud mentor. He says: “Capt Bhogendra is the hardest working student I have ever supervised, and his topic is very relevant for aviation safety and efficient flight operations.”

At a time when most young Nepalis are cynical about the country’s future, this doctor-pilot is an example of how, given the opportunity, even Nepalis from the humblest beginnings can rise up.

Says Capt Kathayat: “It is fashionable nowadays to be negative about the government, but I keep reminding myself that I would not be where I am today without government subsidies, government scholarships and the opportunity that a government-owned airline provided me.”

Yes, and plus a lot of hard work and perseverance.