Nepal began a national day of mourning on Monday, January 16, 2023, a day after a plane crashed while attempting to land at a newly opened airport, killing at least 66 of the 72 people aboard.
Rescue workers descended into a 300-meter gorge to continue the search for the six missing people.
A Senior Administrative Officer in Kaski district, Tek Bahadur K.C., divulged that authorities revised the death toll down from Sunday’s 68 after a recount early Monday morning,
Rescue workers are also rummaging through the debris for the flight data recorder. It remains unclear what caused the crash.
A witness said that he saw the aircraft spinning violently in the air after it began descending to land, finally, the plane fell nose-first towards its left and crashed into the gorge.
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority disclosed that the aircraft last made contact with the airport from near Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. before crashing.
The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was completing the 27-minute flight from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west.
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority revealed in a statement that the aircraft was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals, as well as four crew members. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France.
The bodies are being kept in the Pokhara Academy of Health and Science, Western Hospital. Gyan Khakda, a police Spokesperson in the district, stated that 31 bodies have been identified and will be handed over to family after officials finish post mortem reports.
The bodies of foreigners and those that are unrecognizable will be sent to Kathmandu for further investigation.
At Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, family members appeared distraught as they waited for information.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal rushed to the airport after the crash and set up a panel to investigate the accident.
“The incident was tragic. The full force of the Nepali army, police has been deployed for rescue,” Dahal said.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it’s still trying to confirm the fate of two South Korean passengers and has 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. The city’s new international airport began operations only two weeks ago.
The type of plane involved, the ATR 72, has been used by airlines around the world for short regional flights. Introduced in the late 1980s by a French and Italian partnership, the aircraft model has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years.
Company Spokesperson, Sudarshan Bartaula divulged that Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes.
An Alarming History Of Air Crashes
Home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest, Nepal has an alarming history of air crashes.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.
Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it crashed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.
ATR identified the plane involved in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to plane tracking data from flightradar24.com, the aircraft was 15 years old and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.”
According to records on Airfleets.net, it was previously flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air before Yeti took it over in 2019.
The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak safety standards.
In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.
