Nepal's airline sacrifices goat to fix jet

The BBC reports that Nepal's government-owned airline fixed a jet that has electrical problem by sacrificing a goat.

The offering was made to Akash Bhairab, the Hindu god of sky protection, whose symbol is seen on the company's planes.
The airline said that after Sunday's ceremony the plane successfully completed a flight to Hong Kong.
"The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," senior airline official Raju KC was quoted as saying by Reuters.

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Anonymous

Is any network support person surprised by this?
Anonymous

Possibly the goat kept eating the wires & they killed it to stop the recurring “electrical problems”.

Either way, glad I don’t have to fly on that airline, but at least they don’t have the TSA to deal with.
Miss Cellania

I would bet there was an electrical mechanic involved, as well as a goat.
Anonymous

I didn’t realize that Royal Nepal Airlines still used SCSI interfaces. (As has been known for many years, there are sound technical reasons why one must sacrifice a goat to make SCSI work.)
dculberson

If there was no electrical mechanic involved, then I know which airline I’m never flying on!
jphilby

Aha, the old “hey hairy ram” fix.

It’s a hoary old thang. Remember using that in the early days of S-100 bus-planes. With hundreds of RAM chips onboard, it was the only way to fix those intermittent glitches. Spose it was inevitable that it worked its way into avionics.
Anonymous

alternative medicine at work or alternative engineering as the case may be. now the VW/Apple crowd have an airline.
Dybbuk

alternative medicine at work or alternative engineering as the case may be. now the VW/Apple crowd have an airline.
Anonymous

Thank god they didn’t do something really weird, Like call an engineer.

- The Aussie Flight Attendant.

(Yes, I know they probably did, Its a joke, Joyce.)
Anonymous

It makes a good laugh and all, but after reading the story it looks like they sacrificed the goat after fixing the problem, not “to” fix the problem. There was a similar account in The Telegraph a few months back about a goat being sacrificed when Iraqi Airways resumed operations (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/16/wwide16.xml)
Anonymous

Posted by Mitch
I’m sure they sacrificed goats in addition to,
and not instead of, making mechanical
repairs.

I’m pleased to see that others see it that way
as well. I was prepared to correct a bunch of
ethocentric goons. Glad that isn’t necessary.

The goat meat was probably eaten after the
sacrifice.
Anonymous

from home.xnet.com /~raven/Sysadmin/ASR.Songs.html

‘Twas on a Wednesday morning the SCSI priest arrived,
With cabling, two goats and her bloody aaaaaaltar knife.
Two sacrifices later the disks began to spin,
The luser waited 20 hours, then he called us up ag’in.
Anonymous

There is no Royal Nepal Airlines, it’s Nepal Airlines Corporation. Makes you wonder what/who Virgin Atlantic would sacrifice???
Anonymous

I’ll personally be boycotting Nepal Airlines. Any airline, operating advanced technology such as the 757 should perhaps look into training their maintenance engineers up to current industry standard. (Or perhaps replace their aging fleet). Goats shouldn’t be involved. It’s not their fault that Nepal Airlines is an inferior operation.

Plus, an airline with such disregard for life shouldn’t be operational. Not only are they unconcerned for the lives of the goats, they’re also unconcerned for the lives of their passengers. If the airplane’s airworthiness is questionable – in the interest of safety – keep it grounded until it’s fixed in accordance with the standards appropriate for such a technological machine, or replace the darned thing.

And the fact that so many on here make jokes about this issue concerns me. What is our world coming to?

Comments such as “it makes a good laugh” or “the goat sacrifice is just good marketing” are completely ridiculous and inhumane. Perhaps some of you should think about what you’re supporting. The fact that you find a “light” side to this tragedy is embarassing. We’re no longer barbaric neanderthals or cro magnons people. We’re homo sapiens. Something called evolution has taken place since those days… perhaps some of us should “catch up with the times”.
Ben Morris

I would imagine they know exactly how to fix a plane, and the goat sacrifice is just good marketing.

Presumably the proportion of potential customers who feel safer on an airline which is on good terms with the gods is sufficient to make the goat a sound investment!