The plane, carrying 68 passengers and four crew members, crashed between the old and new Pokhara airports in central Nepal, in the country’s worst such incident in nearly five years.
At least 32 people have been killed after a plane with 72 on board crashed into a gorge while landing at a newly-opened airport in Nepal, officials have reported.
One local official said that some survivors had been taken to hospital – but this was not confirmed by Yeti Airlines, which operated the flight, or by a second official.
“29 bodies have been recovered so far,” the plane operator Yeti Airlines’ spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula told AFP news agency.
Rescuers scoured the crash site near the Seti River, using ropes to pull out bodies from the wreckage, parts of which were hanging over the edge of the gorge in the central resort town of Pokhara after the crash on Sunday.
The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals, and four crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.
The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France, confirmed Bartaula.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said the plane was flying from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara and he urged security personnel and the general public to help with the rescue efforts.
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At least 32 people were killed after an airplane carrying 72 passengers crashed in Nepal’s Pokhara on January 15.
Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside crash site in search of more bodies in the country’s worst airline disaster in more than 30 years pic.twitter.com/7H9IAoFJ1f
— TRT World (@trtworld) January 15, 2023
Deadly accidents in Nepal
It was not immediately clear what caused the plane to crash.
Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers. But it has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance.
The Himalayan country also has some of the world’s most remote and tricky runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.
The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions, and aircraft operators say Nepal also lacks infrastructure for accurate weather forecasts.
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 after losing contact with air control.
After that crash authorities tightened regulations, including that planes would only be cleared to fly only if there was favourable weather forecast throughout the route.
In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane crash-landed near Kathmandu’s notoriously difficult 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.
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Journalist Rajneesh Bhandari has the latest on Nepal plane crash from capital Kathmandu pic.twitter.com/rgqQxlRl2E
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) January 15, 2023
Source: AFP
Dozens dead after passenger plane crashes in Nepal
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