A government official said that at least 68 people died Sunday when a plane crashed near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal. This was the tragic plane crash in Nepal in more than 30 years.
A spokesman for Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, Sudarshan Bartaula, said that four crew members and 68 passengers were on board the ATR 72 plane when it crashed. Nepal’s civil aviation authority said that 37 were men, 25 were women, 3 were children, and 3 were babies.
Army spokesman Krishna Prasad Bhandari said that search efforts stopped at night and will start up again on Monday morning. Before that, Bhandari said, hundreds of first responders were still trying to find the last four people.
According to data from the Aviation Safety Network, the crash on Sunday was the third-deadliest in the Himalayan country’s history. Only in July and September 1992 did more than one person die at the same time. Thai Airways and Pakistan International airlines both had planes that crashed, killing 113 and 167 people, respectively.
The civil aviation authority said that 53 of the passengers and all four of the crew were from Nepal. There were also 15 people from other countries on the plane. Five of them were from India, four were from Russia, and two were from Korea. The rest were Australian, Argentine, French, and Irish people who lived on their own.
The country’s state media, The Rising Nepal, said that the plane was flying from Kathmandu, the capital, to Pokhara, the country’s second-largest city and a gateway to the Himalayas. Pokahara is about 80 miles west of Kathmandu, which is 129 kilometers away.
The last time the plane talked to the Pokhara airport was about 18 minutes after takeoff, at 10:50 a.m. local time. Then it went down in the Seti River Gorge, which is close by. Civil aviation officials said in a statement that first responders from the Nepal Army and other police departments have been sent to the crash site and are carrying out a rescue operation.
Sunday, a video clip posted on social media seemed to show what happened right before the plane went down. The video, which looks like it was taken from the roof of a house in Pokhara, shows the plane flying low over a populated area and rolling on its side before the plane is no longer visible. At the end of the video, you can hear a loud explosion.
A five-person committee has also been set up to look into what happened. Bishnu Paudel, Nepal’s vice prime minister and government spokesman, said that the five people must give the government a report within 45 days.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said, “I am deeply saddened by the sad and tragic accident.”
Dahal said on Twitter, “I sincerely ask the security forces, all government agencies in Nepal, and the general public to start a real rescue.”
A spokesman for the prime minister said that the government made Monday a holiday to remember the people who died.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and Australia’s ambassador to Nepal all sent their condolences.
Pained by the tragic air crash in Nepal in which precious lives have been lost, including Indian nationals. In this hour of grief, my thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families. @cmprachanda @PM_nepal_
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 15, 2023
Nepal’s Yeti Airlines said that all regular flights would be canceled on Monday, January 16, out of respect for the people who died in the crash.
Nepal is in the Himalayas and has eight of the world’s 14 tallest mountains, including Everest. There have been a number of air accidents in Nepal. The weather can change quickly, and most airstrips are in mountainous areas that are hard to get to.
In May, a Tara Air flight carrying 22 people crashed into a Himalayan mountain at an altitude of about 14,500 feet. According to the Aviation Safety Network database, that was the 19th plane crash in the country in the past 10 years, and the 10th one that killed people.
The plane that crashed on Sunday was an ATR 72-500, which is a type of twin-prop turbojet often used by low-cost airlines in the Asia-Pacific region. Planes made by ATR, which is a partnership between the European aviation companies Airbus and Leonardo, usually have a good reputation.
They have, however, been in crashes before. In July 2014 and February 2015, two ATR 72s flown by the now-defunct Taiwanese airline Transasia were involved in deadly crashes. Because of the second, Taiwanese officials temporarily grounded all ATR 72s that were registered on the island.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, 11 people had died in accidents involving different models of the ATR 72 before Sunday’s crash in Nepal.
In a statement released on Sunday, ATR said that it knew about the accident.
The statement said, “Our first thoughts are with everyone who is affected by this.” “Both the investigation and the customer are getting full support from ATR specialists.”
Read more about this accident – https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/15/asia/nepal-air-travel-risks-intl/index.html
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