All Dead in Nepal Plane Crash, Five Indians were on Board

New Delhi:All 72 people flying on board have been declared  dead. The flight was coming from capital Kathmandu
crashed in Pokhara this morning, news agency AFP said,  quoting the police. There were 68 passengers and four crew  members on board the plane that crashed between the old  and new airports in the city, located in western Nepal. The  twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft operated by Yeti Airlines was en  route from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.
15 foreign nationals, and six children, were on board. 53  Nepali, 5 Indian, 4 Russian, 2 Koreans, 1 Argentinian, and
one each from Ireland, Australia, and France were in the  plane, the airlines said in a statement. “Thirty-one (bodies) have been taken to hospitals,” police  official AK Chhetri told AFP, adding that 36 other bodies  were found in the gorge where the aircraft  crashed. Rescue operations have been difficult because  of a raging fire at the wreckage, Nepali  journalist Dilip Thapa told Media. Nepal Prime  Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’  called an emergency cabinet meeting soon  after the crash, and the Nepal government has  formed a five-member commission of inquiry  to probe the incident. According to the Civil Aviation Authority of  Nepal (CAAN), the aircraft took off from  Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport  at 10:33 am. The plane was close to landing at the Pokhara  airport, when it crashed into a river gorge on  the bank of the Seti River. The crash happened around 20
minutes after the take-off, suggesting the aircraft might have  been on the descent. The flight time between the two cities is  25 minutes. “We don’t know right now if there are survivors,” the airline’s  spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula told news agency AFP. The plane caught fire as it crashed, and rescue workers were  trying to put it out, a local official was quoted as saying. Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia condoled  the loss of lives in the plane crash. “The loss of lives in a  tragic plane crash in Nepal is extremely unfortunate. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the bereaved. Om Shanti,” he tweeted. Nepal’s airline business has been plagued with concerns around safety, and inadequate training of staff. The European Union has since 2013 put Nepal on the flight safety blacklist, ordering a blanket ban on all flights from the Himalayan country into its airspace, after the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) flagged safety concerns. Hundreds of people have earlier died in horrific plane crashes in Nepal, news agency AFP has reported. In May 2022, all 22 people on board a plane operated by Nepali carrier Tara Air — 16 Nepalis, four Indians, and two Germans — died when it crashed. In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane crashlanded near Kathmandu’s international airport, killing 51 people. That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu. Just two months earlier, a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.

About Post Author