A Yeti Airlines plane carrying 72 with 72 people on board crashed in Nepal on Sunday, and an initial report lists at least 29 dead and some survivors, an official said.
“There are 68 passengers on board and four crew members… Help is on the way,” Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesman for Yeti Airlines, said earlier. Among the passengers are three babies, three children and eleven foreigners whose nationality is currently unknown.
The plane, which took off from Kathmandu at 10.30am (5.30am French time), crashed 200 km from the Nepalese capital in Nayagaun, between the old and new airports of Pokhara in the center of the country. in the gorges of the Seti River.
Plane “torn to pieces”
The cabin was on fire, local official Gurudutta Dhakal said. “Rescuers are already on the scene trying to put out the fire,” he added, specifying that they were “first focused on putting out the fire and rescuing the passengers.” In the pictures posted on social networks, dozens of people are on site to help with the rescue.
According to India Today, 36 bodies have already been found. According to army spokesman Krishna Bhandari, who was contacted by Portal, the plane was “blown to bits”. Nepal Police Deputy Sub-Inspector Rudra Thapa confirmed to the Kathmandu Post that 25 bodies were taken to different hospitals in Pokhara for autopsy.
According to flight tracking site FlightRadar, the plane was 15 years old. The ATR72 is a popular twin-engine turboprop aircraft manufactured by a company jointly owned by Airbus and the Italian company Leonardo. Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 aircraft, according to its website.
In a video posted on social media, we see it spinning while losing altitude. The aircraft contacted the control tower at 10:50 a.m. before disappearing from radar. Emergency services were called at 11 a.m.
Nepal’s aviation industry has boomed in recent years, transporting goods and people to hard-to-reach areas, as well as tourists for hiking and mountaineering. But it suffered from a lack of security due to insufficient training and maintenance.
The European Union has banned all Nepalese airlines from accessing its airspace for safety reasons.
One of the toughest tracks in the world
The Himalayan country also has some of the most remote and difficult routes in the world, flanked by snow-capped peaks that challenge even experienced pilots.
Airplane operators say Nepal lacks the infrastructure to produce accurate weather forecasts, particularly in remote areas with rugged mountainous terrain, which have had a history of fatal accidents. Even in the mountains, the weather changes quickly, making for even more challenging flight conditions.
In May 2022, all 22 people on board a plane belonging to the Nepalese company Tara Air – 16 Nepalese, four Indians and two Germans – died when the plane crashed. Air traffic control lost contact with the two-propeller aircraft shortly after takeoff from Pokhara heading for Jomsom, a popular trekking destination. His wreck was found a day later on a mountainside at an altitude of about 4,400 meters. Around 60 people took part in the search mission, most of them walking for kilometers.
After this crash, authorities tightened regulations, specifically that the planes could only fly when the weather forecast was favorable throughout the trip.
In March 2018, a US Bangla Airlines plane crashed near Kathmandu’s notoriously difficult-to-access international airport, killing 51 people. The accident was the deadliest in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane died in a crash on approach to Kathmandu.