At least 44 dead in worst air crash in Nepal in nearly five years

KATHMANDU, Jan 15 (Reuters) – At least 44 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Nepal’s Pokhara, an aviation authority official said, in the worst crash of this small Himalayan country in nearly five years.

Hundreds of rescuers were scouring the hill where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, crashed. The weather was clear, said Jagannath Niroula, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

“Thirty bodies have been recovered and sent to hospital,” Niroula told Reuters. “14 other bodies are still lying at the crash site and authorities are bringing in a crane to move them.”

Local television showed rescuers scrambling around broken sections of the plane. Some of the ground near the crash site was burned, with visible flames.

“The plane is burning,” police chief Ajay KC said, adding that rescuers were struggling to reach the site in a gorge between two hills near the tourist town’s airport.

The craft made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in a statement. “Then it crashed.”

“Half the plane is on the side of a hill,” said Arun Tamu, a local resident, who told Reuters he reached the site minutes after the plane went down. “The other half fell in the gorge of the Seti River.”

Khum Bahadur Chhetri said he watched from the roof of his house as the flight approached.

“I saw the plane shaking, moving from side to side, then suddenly its nose dipped and it entered the throat,” Chhetri told Reuters, adding that local residents took two passengers to the hospital.

The government has set up a commission to investigate the cause of the crash and is expected to report back within 45 days, Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel told reporters.

SERIES OF ACCIDENTS

The crash is Nepal’s deadliest since March 2018, when a US-Bangla Dash 8 turboprop flight from Dhaka crashed on landing in Kathmandu, killing 51 of 71 people on board, according to Aviation Safety. Network.

At least 309 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal – home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest mountains, including Everest – where sudden weather changes can create dangerous conditions.

The European Union has banned Nepalese airlines from its airspace since 2013, citing safety concerns.

Passengers on the ATR 72 twin-engine plane included two babies and four crew members, airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said.

The passengers included five Indians, four Russians and an Irishman, two South Koreans, an Australian, a Frenchman and an Argentine.

European aircraft manufacturer ATR’s ATR72 is a widely used twin-engine turboprop aircraft manufactured by a joint venture of Airbus (AIR.PA) and Italy’s Leonardo. Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 aircraft, according to its website.

“ATR specialists are fully committed to supporting both the investigation and the customer,” the company said on Twitter, adding that its first thoughts were with those affected after being made aware of the crash.

Airbus and Leonardo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said on Twitter that the Yeti Airlines plane was 15 years old and fitted with an old transponder with unreliable data.

“We upload high-resolution data and check the quality of the data,” he said.

On its website, Yeti describes itself as one of the leading national carriers. Its fleet consists of six ATR 72-500s, including the one that crashed. It also owns Tara Air, and the two together offer the “widest network” in Nepal, according to the company.

Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed; Written by Devjyot Ghoshal and Aditya Kalra; Editing by William Mallard

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