The plane crash registered today in Nepal at crashing an aircraft with 72 people on board and at least 68 localized dead, It is the most serious that has occurred in the area in the last ten years. The Nepalese authorities raised to 68 the number of confirmed deaths following the accident of a plane that crashed this Sunday in one of the deadliest air accidents that has taken place in the Himalayan country.
To date, the most tragic event took place on March 12, 2018 when a plane of the Bangladeshi airline US-Bangla, coming from Dhaka, crashed during landing maneuver at Kathmandu International Airport with 67 passengers and four crew members. on board, leaving fifty dead.
“We have recovered 68 bodies from the crash site”, spokesman Prem Nath Thakur, from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, which is part of the rescue operation, told EFE. “The search for the remaining four continues,” he added.
The aircraft, an ATR-72, crashed twenty minutes following taking off from Kathmandu at approximately 10:30 a.m. (4:45 GMT) when he was heading to the airport in the Pokhara district, a very popular tourist center in the country, regarding two hundred kilometers west of the Nepalese capital.
With an estimated route of less than half an hour, the incident occurred when the plane was trying to land at its destination, Yeti Airlines spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula told EFE. According to the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority, the passengers included 53 Nepalis, five Indian citizens, four Russians, one Irishman, one Australian, one Argentine, two Koreans, and one Frenchman.
In addition, four crew members were on board. Videos posted on social networks, attributed to today’s accident, show columns of smoke coming from the area where the accident took place, and the remains of the plane on fire.
Government Nepalese convened an emergency meeting following the accident and constituted a five-member commission of inquiry under the direction of the civil aviation authority. Nepal further declared a day of national mourning for the victims.
Air accidents are frequent in Nepal, which has been the subject of repeated international sanctions for the lack of controls. The European Union, in fact, has banned Nepali airlines from accessing its territory since 2013.
Fifteen people were also killed on May 14, 2012, and six were injured following an Agni Air company plane crashed in the mountains of northern Nepal following suffering a technical problem. In the aircraft there were 16 passengers of Indian nationality who were going to Muktinath, a pilgrimage center for followers of Buddhism and Hinduism.
That same year, on September 28, 19 people – seven Britons, five Chinese and seven Nepalis – also died when a Dornier plane caught fire, of Sita Air, following a bird hit the aircraft shortly following taking off from Kathmandu airport.
On February 16, 2014, the 18 occupants of a Twin Otter plane died when the aircraft crashed, which had left Pokhara for Jumla. Poor visibility due to snow was the possible cause of the accident.
Two years later, on February 24, 2016, a Twin Otter from the Nepalese company Tara Air also crashed when it was flying from Pokhara airport to Jomsom airport, a route of only 20 minutes that flies over the Himalayas. Its 23 occupants died.
On May 29, 2022, a Twin Otter plane crashed on the same route, killing all 22 occupants. The most serious accident, however, registered in the area since 1990 took place on September 28, 1992, when an Airbus-300 of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) company crashed during approach maneuvers to the Kathmandu airport, killing 167 people, including thirty Spaniards.
Two months before, On July 31, all 113 people on board an Airbus A310-300 died of the Thai company Thai Airways following the plane crashed when it was regarding to land at the Kathmandu airport.