Nepal
Nepalese pilot and five Mexican passengers killed in plane crash shortly after takeoff near Lukla
AFP in Kathmandu
Tuesday 11 July 2023 at 4:18pm BST
All six people on board a tourist helicopter in Nepal have been killed after it crashed shortly after takeoff from the Everest region.
The Manang Air flight was flying from near Lukla towards the capital Kathmandu, a base for climbing expeditions to the world’s highest peak, with five Mexican tourists – two men and three women – and a Nepalese pilot on board.
The helicopter lost contact eight minutes after takeoff Tuesday morning, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said in a statement.
“The six bodies were recovered and taken to Kathmandu,” Pratap Babu Tiwari, director-general of Tribhuvan International Airport, told AFP.
Two helicopters were used for search and rescue, but were unable to land at the crash site due to the weather. “The teams on the ground took the bodies to the helicopters, which were able to land nearby,” Tiwari said.
Lhakpa Sherpa, a resident who joined search and rescue operations, described the scene as “very frightening”. “It looks like the helicopter first collided with a tree and then slammed to the ground. It made a little hole in the ground,” he said.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed his sadness at the incident, his office said on Twitter.
Nepal has a booming private helicopter industry that flies tourists and cargo to remote corners of the Himalayan country where road access is limited. The country is notorious for its poor flight safety and Tuesday’s incident is the latest in a string of plane crashes.
One person was killed and four injured in May when a helicopter crashed in eastern Nepal after dropping off goods for a hydropower project.
Several helicopter accidents killed more than a dozen people during rescue and relief operations after the devastating earthquake in Nepal in 2015.
Plane crashes are also common in the Himalayan Republic, which has remote and difficult airstrips with snow-capped peaks that pose a challenge even to experienced pilots. Weather can change quickly in the mountains, making for treacherous flying conditions, and Nepal’s poor safety record is compounded by inadequate training and maintenance.
All 72 people on board a flight to the tourist city of Pokhara died in January when the plane crashed into a steep ravine.
In 2018, a US Bangla Airlines plane crashed near Kathmandu International Airport, killing 51 and seriously injuring 20.
In Nepal’s deadliest aviation accident in 1992, all 167 people died on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu Airport.
The EU has banned all Nepalese airlines from entering its airspace for safety reasons.