At least 68 people died Sunday when a plane crashed while attempting to land in the Nepalese city of Pokhara, some 200 kilometers from the capital Kathmandu, from where it took off. 72 people were traveling in the device, including the four crew members. It is the worst plane crash in the Himalayan country in three decades.
“The plane was blown to bits,” military spokesman Krishna Bhandari said shortly after the accident. It was an ATR72 twin-propeller aircraft manufactured by the Franco-Italian manufacturer ATR, which operated Yeti Airlines. The passenger list included three babies and three other children, according to a statement from the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority; By nationality, 53 travelers were Nepali, five from India, four from Russia, two from South Korea, one from Ireland, one from Australia, one from France and one from Argentina. According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the damaged device was 15 years old.
A man climbed the remains of the stairs of the plane that crashed in Pokhara this Sunday. STRINGER (Portal)
Local television footage showed a large plume of smoke rising from the crash site, where rescue teams and many area residents rushed. Hundreds of rescuers searched the slope where the device crashed. “The plane crashed in a ravine, so removing the bodies is difficult. The search operation continues but no survivors have been found so far,” army spokesman Bhandari said later in the day. After hours of work, during which dozens of bodies were recovered, the emergency services withdrew at dusk. Work at the scene of the accident will continue on Monday.
The weather at the time of the crash was clear, said Jagannath Niroula, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal. A Pokhara airport spokesman said the plane crashed as it approached the runways in a “normal descent”.
The plane made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (local time), the aviation authority specified in a statement: “Then it crashed.” The plane caught fire after the crash, said police officer Ajay KC and set notes that rescue teams had difficulty reaching the crime scene in a ravine between two hills near the resort’s airport.
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The government has launched an investigation to clarify the causes of the disaster and expects a report in 45 days, Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel said.
“Half the plane is on the hillside,” said Arun Tamu, a local resident who told Portal he arrived at the scene minutes after the plane crashed. “The other half fell into the Seti Gorge,” he added. Another resident, Khum Bahadur Chhetri, said he saw the plane approaching from the roof of his house: “I saw that the plane was shaking, moving left and right, and suddenly it was falling down the gorge.”
Local residents next to the wreckage of the crashed plane in Pokhara this Sunday. Yunish Gurung (AP)
Pokhara Airport serves as a connection for travelers heading to the city of Jomsom in the heart of the Himalayas, a popular destination for tourists visiting Annapurna Peak (8,091 meters) or the Mustang region, as well as Hindu pilgrims.
Sunday’s accident is the deadliest in Nepal since 1992, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed on approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on the way there, according to the Aviation Safety Database. In March 2018, a plane operated by Bangladeshi airline US-Bangla from Dhaka crashed while landing at Kathmandu International Airport with 67 passengers and four crew members on board, killing fifty people.
At least 350 people have died in plane or helicopter crashes since 2000 in Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains including Everest, and where weather can change suddenly and create dangerous conditions. Due to a lack of controls, Nepal has repeatedly been the target of international sanctions. In fact, Nepalese airlines have been banned from entering the EU since 2013.
Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called a meeting of his emergency cabinet after the accident, according to a government statement.
Remains of the fuselage of the destroyed plane this Sunday. STRINGER (Portal)