I flew on Summit Air Let L-410 from Pokhara to Jomsom to discover what makes this flight one of the most challenging in the world. The flight took just 20 minutes at 10,500 feet and flew through a narrow valley passage around two 8,000m mountains (Annapurna and Dhaulagiri) en route. The video highlights flying in Nepal’s rugged and challenging Himalayan terrain.

Jomsom lies on the arid north side of the Himalaya and has operations only in the mornings because of high winds and cloud build-up during the course of the day. The route has seen many fatal accidents, and nearly all due to controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) during bad weather. The elevation of Jomsom Airport is 8,976 feet (2,736m) above sea level.

The weather was excellent in the dry season but soon the wind picked up and flight operations between Pokhara and Jomsom were temporarily halted. I managed to explore Jomsom and finally took the last flight back to Pokhara. It was a beautiful mountain flight with the wings flying close to the high mountain terrain.