Nepal Plane Crash: 68 killed, search continues for four missing

Kathmandu. Nepal’s search and rescue personnel resumed work on Monday morning to find the four missing people on board the plane that crashed on Sunday. Earlier the rescue operation was stopped on Sunday night. There were 72 people including four crew members in the crashed ATR-72 aircraft, out of which 68 people have been confirmed dead. This is the deadliest plane crash in the Himalayan nation in more than 30 years. According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the 9N-ANC ATR-72 aircraft of Yeti Airlines took off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu at 10.33 am.

While landing at Pokhara airport, the plane crashed on the banks of river Seti between the old airport and the new airport. Five Indians Abhishek Kushwaha (25), Vishal Sharma (22), Anil Kumar Rajbhar (27), Sonu Jaiswal (35) and Sanjay Jaiswal were killed in the accident. All of them were residents of Uttar Pradesh. The pilot of the aircraft, Captain Kamal KC, made the first contact with the Pokhara control tower from a distance of about 110 km.

Pokhara International Airport spokesman Anup Joshi said, the weather was clear. We asked them to land on Runway 30…everything was fine. He said that no problem had come to the fore. Joshi said the captain of the aircraft later sought permission to land on runway 12. We don’t know why he did it, he said. Permission was granted and then the aircraft began to descend. The bodies have been sent to Gandaki Hospital for postmortem, an official of Kaski’s district administration office said.

Government spokesperson and Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel said on Sunday that the government has constituted a five-member inquiry committee to investigate the accident. An inquiry committee headed by former aviation secretary Nagendra Ghimire has been asked to probe the accident and submit its report within 45 days. Significantly, on May 29 last year, a Tara Air plane had crashed in the mountainous Mustang district, killing all 22 people on board, including four members of an Indian family.

In 2016, a plane of the same airline crashed on the same route, killing all 23 people on board. In March 2018, 51 people died in a plane crash at Tribhuvan International Airport. In September 2012, a Sita Air plane crashed while making an emergency landing at Tribhuvan International Airport, killing 19 people. A plane while flying from Pokhara to Jomsom crashed near Jomsom airport on 14 May 2012, killing 15 people.

read this also : 68 people died in plane crash in Nepal, PM Modi expressed grief