Dozens killed, 4 missing after Nepal plane crashes during landing | 24CA News
A airplane making a 27-minute flight to a Nepal vacationer city crashed right into a gorge Sunday whereas trying to land at a newly opened airport, killing at the least 68 of the 72 folks aboard. At least one witness reported listening to cries for assist from throughout the fiery wreck, the nation’s deadliest airplane accident in three a long time.
Hours after darkish, scores of onlookers crowded across the crash web site close to the airport within the resort city of Pokhara as rescue employees combed the wreckage on the sting of the cliff and within the ravine beneath. Officials suspended the seek for the 4 lacking folks in a single day and deliberate to renew wanting Monday.
Local resident Bishnu Tiwari, who rushed to the crash web site close to the Seti River to assist seek for our bodies, mentioned the rescue efforts had been hampered by thick smoke and a raging fireplace.
“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,” Tiwari mentioned.
It was not instantly clear what triggered the accident, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority mentioned.
Aircraft went right into a spin, witness says
A witness mentioned he noticed the plane spinning violently within the air after it started descending to land, watching from the terrace of his home. Finally, Gaurav Gurung mentioned, the airplane fell nose-first towards its left and crashed into the gorge.
The aviation authority mentioned the plane final made contact with the airport from close to Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. earlier than crashing.
The twin-engine ATR 72 plane, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was flying from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, situated 200 kilometres west. It was carrying 68 passengers together with 15 overseas nationals, in addition to 4 crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority mentioned in a press release.
The foreigners included 5 Indians, 4 Russians, two South Koreans, and one every from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France. Global Affairs Canada mentioned native authorities have confirmed that no Canadians had been on board.
Fuselage break up into a number of components
Images and movies shared on Twitter confirmed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash web site, about 1.6 kilometres from Pokhara International Airport. The plane’s fuselage was break up into a number of components that had been scattered down the gorge.
Firefighters carried our bodies, some burned past recognition, to hospitals the place grief-stricken kinfolk had assembled. At Kathmandu airport, members of the family appeared distraught as they had been escorted in and at instances exchanged heated phrases with officers as they waited for info.
Tek Bahadur Okay. C., a senior administrative officer within the Kaski district, mentioned he anticipated rescue employees to seek out extra our bodies on the backside of the gorge.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who rushed to Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu after the crash, arrange a panel to analyze the accident.
“The incident was tragic. The full force of the Nepali army, police has been deployed for rescue,” he mentioned.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry mentioned in a press release that it is nonetheless making an attempt to verify the destiny of two South Korean passengers and has despatched employees to the scene. The Russian Ambassador to Nepal, Alexei Novikov, confirmed the demise of 4 Russian residents who had been on board the airplane.
Pokhara widespread tourism cease
Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a well-liked mountaineering path within the Himalayas. The metropolis’s new worldwide airport started operations solely two weeks in the past.
The sort of airplane concerned, the ATR 72, has been utilized by airways all over the world for brief regional flights. Introduced within the late Nineteen Eighties by a French and Italian partnership, the plane mannequin has been concerned in a number of lethal accidents through the years.
In Taiwan two earlier accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts occurred simply months aside.
Dozens of individuals on board a Yeti Air flight are useless after Nepal’s deadliest airplane crash in a long time.
In July 2014, a TransAsia ATR 72-500 flight crashed whereas making an attempt to land on the scenic Penghu archipelago between Taiwan and China, killing 48 folks onboard. An ATR 72-600 operated by the identical Taiwanese airline crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei in February 2015 after considered one of its engines failed and the second was shut down, apparently by mistake.
The 2015 crash, captured in dramatic footage that confirmed the airplane putting a taxi because it hurtled uncontrolled, killed 43, and prompted authorities to floor all Taiwanese-registered ATR 72s for a while. TransAsia ceased all flights in 2016 and later went out of business.
ATR recognized the airplane concerned in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to airplane monitoring information from flightradar24.com, the plane was 15 years outdated and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.” It was beforehand flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air earlier than Yeti took it over in 2019, in keeping with data on Airfleets.web.
History of air crashes in Nepal
Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes, firm spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula mentioned.
Nepal, house to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, together with Mount Everest, has a historical past of air crashes. According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 deadly airplane crashes in Nepal since 1946.
Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 folks aboard a Pakistan International Airlines airplane had been killed when it plowed right into a hill because it tried to land in Kathmandu.
The European Union has banned airways from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak security requirements. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited enhancements in Nepal’s aviation sector, however the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.
