The plane carrying 72 people, including an Australian, was attempting to land at a newly built airport after a 27-minute flight when it crashed.
| A plane making a 27-minute flight to a Nepal tourist town crashed into a gorge on Sunday while attempting to land at a newly-opened airport, killing at least 68 of the 72 people aboard. At least one witness reported hearing cries for help from within the fiery wreck, the country’s deadliest aeroplane accident in three decades.
“The flames were so hot that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. I heard a man crying for help, but because of the flames and smoke we couldn’t help him,” Mr Tiwari said.It was not immediately clear what caused the accident, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said. The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was flying from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, located 200 kilometres west. It was carrying 68 passengers including 15 foreign nationals, as well as four crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France.
“The incident was tragic. The full force of the Nepali army, police has been deployed for rescue,” he said.South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was still trying to confirm the fate of two South Korean passengers and had sent staff to the scene. The Russian Ambassador to Nepal, Alexei Novikov, confirmed the death of four Russian citizens who were on board the plane.Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas.
In July 2014, a TransAsia ATR 72-500 flight crashed while trying to land on the scenic Penghu archipelago between Taiwan and China, killing 48 people onboard. An ATR 72-600 operated by the same Taiwanese airline crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei in February 2015 after one of its engines failed and the second was shut down, apparently by mistake.
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