Do planes retire? An ATR 42 reaches the end of its life in Nepal

After clocking full economic life with 70,000 cycles—44,477 of them for Buddha Air—Nepal bids farewell to its first retired ATR aircraft.

After 29 years in the skies, an ATR 42-320, a twin-turboprop with the Nepali registration mark 9N-AIN, took its final flight on Tuesday. It left the Kathmandu airport with nearly a dozen and a half people onboard on a sightseeing tour, popularly known as mountain flight. After landing, the retirement was announced at the hangar of Buddha Air, its owner.