Sure, you can’t get a very balanced report on China from an Indian channel, but while you may not like the journalistic “slant”, the facts cannot be denied.
It happened to Singapore’s MRT trains some years back and the issues are going to crop up elsewhere as the Belt & Road Initiative takes hold in other Asian countries. Even with all this negative publicity, there are people who continue to trust China Daily and CGTN’s reports singing praises for new technology and military hardware. Perhaps the apologists should put their money or their safety where their mouths are and ride on one of these planes. In Nepal, give me a Russian plane any time.
And below is a video by aviation vlogger Sam Chui documenting his flight on one of these Chinese planes Y12E on Nepal Airlines. The Bhairahawa-bound Nepalese pilot (a Sherpa who looks a bit like Tenzing Norgay) spoke very frankly about the aircraft. It’s definitely not for inexperienced pilots. Even experienced pilots can’t fix technical issues in the air.
As of now, only five of the six Chinese aircraft are functional and one requires maintenance after crash landing on the runway of Nepalgunj Airport on 28 March 2020.
The carrier stated that it incurred financial losses due to various reasons including load penalties, insurance, scarcity of spare parts, expensive parts, etc. After awarding a huge construction project for the new international airport at Bhairahawa to a Chinese company, Chinese aircraft manufacturers dumped all the junk they don’t want or can’t sell on Nepal. That’s Belt and Road for you.
I believe that China is fully capable of producing good planes, but it also produces a lot of junk which they dump on other countries. You’ll never see these planes running on any major airline in China. Confucius said 己所不欲，勿施于人. No, such dishonourable acts have nothing to do with Chinese culture.