Rescue teams work to remove bodies from the wreckage at the crash site of a plane carrying 72 people in Pokhara, western Nepal, January 15, 2023. STRINGER/Reuters
A plane making a 27-minute flight to a tourist town in Nepal crashed into a gorge on Sunday while trying to land at a newly opened airport, killing at least 68 of the 72 people on board. At least one witness reported hearing cries for help from inside the fiery wreckage, the country’s deadliest plane crash in three decades.
Hours after dark, dozens of onlookers crowded the crash site near the airport in the resort city of Pokhara as rescue teams searched for debris on the edge of the cliff and in the gorge below. Authorities called off the search for the four missing overnight and planned to resume the search on Monday.
Local resident Bishnu Tiwari, who rushed to the crash site near the Seti River to help search for the bodies, said rescue efforts were hampered by thick smoke and raging fire.
“The flames were so hot that we could not get close to the wreckage. I heard a man shouting for help, but due to the flames and smoke, we could not help him,” Tiwari said.
It is not yet clear what caused the accident, the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority said.
A witness said he saw the plane spinning violently in the air after it began its descent to land, watching from the terrace of his house. Finally, Gaurav Gurung said, the plane went nose-first to the left and crashed into the gorge.
Aviation authorities said the plane last made contact with the airport from near Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. before it crashed.
The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was flying from the capital Kathmandu to Pokhara, located 200 kilometers (125 miles) west. It was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals, as well as four crew members, the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The foreigners include five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France.
Images and videos shared on Twitter showed plumes of smoke rising from the crash site, about 1.6 kilometers (almost a mile) from Pokhara International Airport. The plane’s fuselage was separated into numerous pieces that were scattered in the gorge.
Firefighters carried the bodies, some burned beyond recognition, to hospitals where heartbroken relatives had gathered. At Kathmandu airport, family members appeared distraught as they were escorted away and at times exchanged heated words with officials as they waited for information.
Tek Bahadur KC, senior administrative officer in Kaski district, said he expected rescuers to find more bodies at the bottom of the gorge.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who rushed to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport after the crash, set up a team to investigate the incident.
“The incident was tragic. The full force of Nepal Army and Police has been sent for rescue,” he said.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it was still trying to confirm the fate of two South Korean passengers and had sent personnel to the scene. The Russian ambassador to Nepal, Alexey Novikov, confirmed the death of four Russian citizens who were on board the plane.
Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas. The city’s new international airport began operations just two weeks ago.
The type of aircraft used, the ATR 72, is used by airlines worldwide for short regional flights. Introduced in the late 1980s by a French and Italian partnership, the aircraft model has been involved in several fatal accidents over the years.
In Taiwan, two earlier accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircraft occurred only months apart.
In July 2014, a TransAsia ATR 72-500 flight crashed while attempting to land on the scenic Pengu Archipelago between Taiwan and China, killing 48 people on board. An ATR 72-600 operated by the same Taiwanese airline crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei in February 2015 after one of its engines failed and the second was shut down, apparently by mistake.
The 2015 crash, captured in dramatic footage showing the plane crashing into taxis while spinning out of control, killed 43 and prompted authorities to temporarily ground all Taiwan-registered ATR 72s. TransAsia suspended all flights in 2016. and later ceased operations.
ATR identified the aircraft involved in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to aircraft tracking data from flightradar24.com, the aircraft was 15 years old and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data”. It was previously flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air before Yeti took over in 2019, according to Airfleets.net records.
Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 aircraft, company spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said.
Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest, has a history of air crashes. According to the aviation safety database of the Flight Safety Foundation, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.
Sunday’s crash was the deadliest in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it crashed into a hill while trying to land in Kathmandu.
The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying to the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing lax safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continued to push for administrative reforms.
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