A plane crashed in Nepal on Sunday. 72 people were on board this Yeti Airlines plane.
A Yeti Airlines plane with 72 people on board crashed in central Nepal on Sunday, the company said, saying it didn’t know “if there were any survivors.” The plane crashed between the old and new airports of Pokhara, 200km from the capital Kathmandu.
“There are 68 passengers on board and four crew members…Aid is on the way, we don’t know if there are any survivors at this time,” said Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesman for Yeti Airlines.
The cabin was on fire and rescue workers were trying to put out the fire, local official Gurudutta Dhakal said.
“Emergency services have already arrived at the scene and are trying to put out the fire,” added Gurudutta Dhakal, adding that they “first focused on putting out the fire and rescuing the passengers.”
According to the Nepalese state television, several bodies were found at the crash site.
Criticism of the Nepalese aviation industry
Nepal’s aviation industry has boomed in recent years, transporting goods and people, as well as trekkers and foreign mountaineers, to hard-to-reach areas. 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.
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.
Multiple cases of crashes
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. Two months earlier, a Thai Airways plane crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.