POKHARA, Nepal — A plane flying to a vacation town in Nepal crashed into a ravine Sunday while attempting to land at a newly opened airstrip, killing at least 68 of the 72 passengers on board. At least one person heard calls for help coming from the burning wreckage. This was the deadliest plane crash in the country in 30 years.
Hundreds of people gathered near the airport in the tourist town of Pokhara after nightfall to watch rescue crews search the debris on the cliff’s edge and in the ravine below. The hunt for the four missing people was halted overnight and will resume on Monday.
Bishnu Tiwari, a local who went to the crash site near the Seti River to assist in the hunt for victims, said the rescue operations were impeded by thick smoke and a blazing fire.
“The flames were so fierce that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. “I heard a man begging for help, but we couldn’t rescue him due to the fire and smoke,” Tiwari explained.
No Cause Has Been Found Yet
According to Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, the cause of the accident was not immediately obvious.
A witness stated he witnessed the airplane spinning violently in the air after it began descending to land while standing on his house’s terrace. Finally, according to Gaurav Gurung, the jet plunged nose-first into the gorge.
The aircraft last touched the airfield in Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. before crashing, according to the aviation authority.
The ATR 72 plane with two engines was going from Kathmandu to Pokhara, which is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of the city. According to Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, the plane carried 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals and four staff members. There were five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina, and France among the foreigners.
Debris Feild Is A Large Area
Tweets showed plumes of smoke erupting from the crash location, which was around 1.6 kilometers (almost a mile) from Pokhara International Airport. The fuselage of the aircraft was disassembled and scattered down the gorge.
Firefighters transported bodies, some of which had been charred beyond recognition, to hospitals where bereaved families had gathered. Family members were distraught as they were brought into Kathmandu airport and exchanged furious comments with officials while waiting for information.
Tek Bahadur K. C., a top administrative officer in the Kaski district, predicted that more bodies would be discovered at the bottom of the valley.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who rushed to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport following the crash, established a panel to investigate the accident.
Plane Is In Pieces
“It was a horrible situation. “The whole Nepali army and police force has been dispatched for rescue,” he said.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry stated that it is still working to determine the situation of two South Korean passengers and has dispatched personnel to the spot. Alexei Novikov, the Russian Ambassador to Nepal, confirmed the deaths of four Russian people on board the jet.
Pokhara is the starting point for the Annapurna Circuit, a prominent Himalayan trekking circuit. The city’s new international airport barely opened two weeks ago.
The plane in question, the ATR 72, has been utilized by airlines worldwide for short regional flights. The aircraft model, introduced in the late 1980s by French-Italian cooperation, has been involved in multiple fatal incidents.
Airport Just Opened
Two previous accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircraft occurred in Taiwan just months apart.
A TransAsia ATR 72-500 jet crashed while attempting to land on the picturesque Penghu island between Taiwan and China in July 2014, killing all 48 persons on board. In February 2015, an ATR 72-600 flown by the same Taiwanese airline crashed in Taipei shortly after takeoff. One of its engines had broken down, and the second engine may have been turned off by accident.
The 2015 tragedy, shown in spectacular footage of the jet colliding with a taxi as it flew out of control, killed 43 people and forced authorities to ground all Taiwanese-registered ATR 72s for an extended period. TransAsia discontinued all flights and went out of business in 2016.
In a tweet, ATR identified the plane involved in the crash on Sunday as an ATR 72-500. According to flightradar24.com data, the aircraft was 15 years old and “fitted with an obsolete transponder with poor data.” According to Airfleets.net, it was formerly flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air before Yeti took over in 2019.
Worst Aviation Accident In Years
Yeti Airlines operates six ATR72-500 planes, according to company spokeswoman Sudarshan Bartaula.
Nepal has a history of air accidents, as it is home to eight of the world’s fourteen highest mountains, including Mount Everest. Since 1946, there have been 42 fatal aviation crashes in Nepal, according to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database.
The incident on Sunday was Nepal’s bloodiest since 1992, when a Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed into a hill attempting to land in Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.
Since 2013, the European Union has prohibited Nepalese airlines from flying into the 27-nation bloc, claiming inadequate safety standards. The International Civil Aviation Organization noted progress in Nepal’s aviation sector in 2017, although the EU continues to press for administrative reforms.
SOURCE – (AP)
