A Yeti Airles plane crashed this Sunday in the city of Pokhara, in central Nepal, with 72 people on board. The plane had left Kathmandu for Pokhara at 10:33 a.m. (local time) and suffered an accident when landing at Pokhara International Airport, on the banks of the Seti River.
The Nepali authorities raised to 68 the number of confirmed deaths after the accident of a plane in which 68 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants were traveling, up to completing the 72 members formed in the flight manifest, including six minors.
“We have recovered 68 bodies from the crash site,” spokesman Prem Nath Thakur of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, which is part of the rescue operation, told EFE. “The search for the remaining four continues,” he added.
According to the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority, the passengers included 53 Nepalis, five Indians, four Russians, one Irishman, one Australian, one Argentine, two Koreans, and one Frenchman.
Plane crash in NepalEFE Agency
10.30 am from the Nepali capital.
With an estimated route of less than half an hour, the accident occurred when the plane tried to land at its destination, Yeti Airlines spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula told EFE.
According to the local media ‘Nepal News’, the head of the Kaski district, Tek Bahadur, has signed that after receiving information about the plane crash in the Seti river valley, he gave instructions to the hospital and ambulances to be in maximum alert. Local officials, such as the local Kaski district chief, Tek Bahadur, are already on the scene to coordinate operations.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is at the Tribhuwan International Airport coordination center in Kathmandu accompanied by Interior Minister Rabi Lamichhane.
The head of government has given instructions to all government agencies to take effective rescue measures and has called an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers today at 1:30 p.m. (08:30 a.m. in mainland Spain).
Other air tragedies in Nepal
This is the second air accident in the country in less than a year, after a Tara Air company plane crashed in the town of Jomsom on May 29, killing all 22 passengers on board. Nepal, with frequent air accidents, has been the target of repeated international sanctions for the lack of controls.
Since November 1960, when the country’s first plane crash occurred, more than 900 people have been killed in such accidents, according to statistics from the Nepal Civil Aviation Agency. The European Union has banned access to its territory for Nepali airlines since 2013.
Up to now, the worst air tragedy in recent years took place in March 2018, when a Bangladeshi airline US-Bangla plane from Dhaka crashed during a landing maneuver at Kathmanduros International Airport with crew members and four passengers. board and left fifty people missing.
