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A passenger aircraft belonging to Yeti Airline crashed while nearing the runwayat Pokhara International Airport in Nepal on January 15, 2023. The 72-seater aircraft, which crashed into the Seti river gorge between the old airport and the Pokhara International Airport while landing around 11 am, was carrying 68 passengers and four crew members, reports said.
According to sources from CNN-NEWS18, all passengers in the plane crash at the Pokhara Airport Nepal have died.
Following the Yeti Airlines aircraft crash, the Pokhara International Airport has been closed for today for all incoming and outgoing flights. As of 5 pm, 68 bodies had been recovered.
According to the Nepal authority, there were five Indians, four Russians, two Koreans, one Australian, one French, one Irish, one Argentinian and one Israeli on board. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said Yeti Airlines’ 9N-ANC ATR-72 aircraft took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport at 10:33 am.
“Some foreign nationals, including two infants, were on board,” Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesperson of Yeti Airlines, said. The five Indians onboard the crashed plane have been identified as Abhisekh Kushwaha, Bishal Sharma, Anil Kumar Rajbhar, Sonu Jaiswal and Sanjaya Jaiswal, a Yeti Airlines official said.
According to the news agency ANI, a five-member committee has been formed to investigate the reasons for the crash
“Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has reached Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu after the accident of the Yeti Airlines ANC ATR 72 plane carrying passengers from Kathmandu to Pokhara,” tweeted the Prime Minister’s Office in Nepal.
The Prime Minister held an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers following the crash on Sunday afternoon and decided to announce a public holiday on January 16 to mourn the victims of the crash.
‘There are 68 passengers on board and four crew members… Rescue is underway. We don’t know right now if there are survivors,” Bartaula told AFP.
Images and videos posted on social media platforms showed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash site. According to top Nepal airport authority officials, the rescue operation is underway through helicopters. The Nepal government has set up a five-member committee to probe the accident.
Gyan Bahadur Khadka, police spokesman, Kaski, said there was a problem in the rescue due to the difficult terrain, and they were “trying work as quickly as possible”. A large crowd also gathered at the site, making it even more difficult for rescue operations.
