Kathmandu, Nepal CNN —
At least 68 people were killed on Sunday when a plane crashed near the central Nepal city of Pokhara, a government official said, the country’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years.
72 people – four crew members and 68 passengers – were on board the ATR 72 plane operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines when it crashed, said Yeti Airlines spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula. Thirty-seven were men, 25 women, three children and three infants, Nepal’s civil aviation authority reported.
Search efforts were called off after dark, army spokesman Krishna Prasad Bhandar said, and will resume on Monday morning. Hundreds of first responders had by then still been working to locate the remaining four people, Bhandar said.
At least one infant is among the dead, according to the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority.
Sunday’s incident was the third-deadliest crash in the history of the Himalayan nation, according to the Aviation Safety Network. The only incidents that killed more people occurred in July and September 1992. These crashes involved Thai Airways and Pakistan International Airlines planes, killing 113 and 167 people respectively.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority, 53 of the passengers and all four crew members were Nepalese. There were also 15 foreign nationals on the plane: five Indians, four Russians and two Koreans. The rest were individual citizens of Australia, Argentina, France and Ireland.
The plane had flown from the capital Kathmandu to Pokhara, the country’s second most populous city, the country’s state-run media, The Rising Nepal, reported. Pokahara is approximately 129 kilometers (80 miles) west of Kathmandu.
The plane last made contact with Pokhara Airport at around 10:50 a.m. local time, about 18 minutes after takeoff. It then went into the nearby Seti River Gorge. First responders from the Nepal Army and various police departments have been deployed to the crash site and are conducting a rescue operation, civil aviation authorities said in a statement.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he was “deeply saddened by the sad and tragic accident”.
“I sincerely appeal to the security personnel, all agencies of the Nepalese government and the general public to initiate an effective rescue operation,” Dahal said on Twitter.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Sunday he was “deeply saddened” to hear of the crash and his thoughts were “with the families affected”.
Nepal’s Yeti Airlines said it canceled all regular flights on Monday, January 16, out of grief for the victims of the crash.
The Himalayan country of Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record number of airline accidents. The weather can change suddenly and runways are usually located in mountainous areas that are difficult to access.
Last May, a Tara Air plane carrying 22 people crashed into a Himalayan mountain at an altitude of about 14,500 feet. According to the Aviation Safety Network database, this was the country’s 19th plane crash in 10 years and the 10th fatal in the same period.
The plane involved in Sunday’s crash was an ATR 72-500, a twin-propeller turbojet commonly used in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly on low-cost airlines. Aircraft from ATR, a joint partnership between European airlines Airbus and Leonardo, tend to have a good reputation.
However, they have already been involved in accidents. Two ATR 72s of the now defunct Taiwanese airline Transasia were involved in fatal accidents in July 2014 and February 2015. The second prompted Taiwanese authorities to temporarily ground all ATR 72s registered on the island.
In total, the various models of ATR 72 were involved in 11 fatal incidents prior to Sunday’s crash in Nepal, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
ATR said in a statement on Sunday that it had been informed of the accident.
“Our first thoughts are with everyone affected by this,” the statement said. “ATR specialists are fully committed to assisting both the investigation and the client.”