Crash in Nepal: at least 67 dead, a Frenchman among the passengers



HASAt least 67 people died Sunday in the accident in Nepal of a plane carrying 72, according to a new assessment of the police. ” Thirty one [corps] were taken to hospitals,” police officer AK Chhetri told Agence France-Presse, adding that 36 other remains were found in the ravine where the plane crashed in the center of the country.

Fifteen foreign nationals, including a Frenchman, are among the passengers, we learned from the airline. Of the 72 people on board, including 68 passengers, are five nationals of India, four Russians, two Koreans, an Australian, an Argentinian, an Irishman and a Frenchman, reported Sudrashan Bardaula of Yeti Airlines. Six children and the four crew members were on board the twin-engine turboprop aircraft. Five people are still missing.

“The plane crashed in gorges” where the search for bodies is “difficult”, said army spokesman Krishna Prasad Bhandari. “No survivors have been found so far,” he said, stressing that the rescue was continuing. This Yeti Airlines ATR 72 from the Nepalese capital Kathmandu crashed shortly before 11 a.m. (0515 GMT) near the local airport in Pokhara, central Nepal, where it was due to land. “Rescue services have already arrived on site and are trying to put out the fire”, he added, specifying that they were “focused first on extinguishing the fire and on rescuing the passengers”.

“A Few Survivors”

“We are actively working to recover and identify the bodies as quickly as possible and hand them over to the families,” police official AK Chhetri told AFP. A representative of the local authorities had previously assured that “some survivors” had been taken to hospital, but this information has not been confirmed by Yeti Airlines or other officials.

In a press release dated from Toulouse, in the south-west of France, ATR, the manufacturer of the aircraft, specified that it was about an ATR 72-500, adding that its specialists were “fully committed to support both the inquiry and the customer,” Yeti Airlines. In a video shared on social media that AFP could not verify, the plane is seen flying low over a residential area before suddenly banking to the left, all followed by a powerful explosion.

A lack of security

Nepal’s airline industry has boomed in recent years, ferrying goods and people to hard-to-reach areas, as well as trekkers and foreign mountain climbers. But it suffered from a lack of safety due to insufficient training and maintenance. The European Union has banned all Nepalese carriers from accessing its airspace for security reasons.

The Himalayan country also has some of the most isolated and tricky tracks in the world, flanked by snow-capped peaks that challenge even seasoned pilots to approach. Aircraft operators say Nepal lacks the infrastructure to make accurate weather forecasts, especially in remote areas with rugged mountainous terrain, where fatal accidents have occurred in the past.

Several precedents

The weather also changes rapidly in the mountains, creating even more challenging flying conditions. In May 2022, the 22 people who were on board a plane operated by the Nepalese company Tara Air (16 Nepalese, 4 Indians and 2 Germans) died when the plane crashed. Air traffic control had lost contact with the twin-propeller aircraft shortly after it took off from Pokhara heading for Jomsom, a popular trekking destination. Its wreckage was found a day later, on the side of a mountain at an altitude of about 4,400 meters.

Around 60 people had taken part in the search mission, most of them having walked for miles to get there. After this crash, the authorities tightened the regulations, in particular so that the planes are only allowed to fly if the weather forecast is favorable throughout the journey.

In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane crashed near the notoriously difficult to access Kathmandu International Airport, killing 51 people. The accident was the deadliest in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane died in a crash approaching Kathmandu. Two months earlier, a Thai Airways plane crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.




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