In one of the deadliest crashes in Nepal civil aviation history in the past 30 years, 68 people have lost their lives when a Yeti Airline with 72 people on-board, crashed into a river gorge while landing at the newly-opened airport in the resort city of Pokhara. The black boxes of the Yeti Airlines aircraft have been recovered from the accident site, as per the officials and rescue operations are on to find the remaining bodies.
As per the reports by the civil aviation authority, out of 72 on-board, 53 passengers and all four crew members were Nepali with 15 foreign nationals.
The plane was last in contact with Pokhara airport at about 10:50 a.m. local time, about 18 minutes after takeoff. It then went down in the nearby Seti River Gorge. First responders from the Nepal Army and various police departments have been deployed to the crash site and are carrying out a rescue operation, the civil aviation authorities said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a five-member committee has also been formed to investigate the cause of the crash.
The aircraft involved in Sunday’s crash was an ATR 72-500, a twin-prop turbojet often used in the Asia-Pacific region, especially among low-cost carriers.
Nepal has recorded 42 plane crashes resulting in fatalities since 1946.