72 people were traveling on the plane, including six minors
At least forty people have died this Sunday in a plane crash in Pokhara, in western Nepal and about 200 kilometers from the capital, Kathmandu, from where it had taken off. The Yeti Airlines ATR 72 twin-engine plane was carrying 72 passengers at the time of the event, including “four crew members and ten foreign citizens,” said the airline’s spokesman, Sudarshan Bartula. Six minors would also travel inside. Pokhara is a very popular destination among mountaineers and pilgrims.
“We do not know their nationalities. We are trying to find out,” Bartula said. The first information indicates that the plane lost control in an area located between the new airport and the old one in Pokhara, began to burn and broke in two when it fell to the ground. Rescue services are working at the scene of the tragedy and are trying to recover the bodies of the passengers.
This is the most tragic event in the country in recent years, after the accident that occurred in March 2018, where 51 people lost their lives. Plane crashes are not uncommon in Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, as the weather can change suddenly, creating dangerous conditions. Precisely because of the number of incidents that occur, the country has been sanctioned on several occasions by the European Union, which already in 2013 prohibited airlines from Nepal from accessing its territory. The country’s prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has convened an emergency cabinet following the accident.
Air crashes in Nepal
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2023: The provisional figure brings the number of deaths in the last accident to 40, although the authorities do not rule out an increase, since the plane has been broken into pieces.
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2022: May. Sixteen Nepalis, four Indians and two Germans died in a De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter plane that crashed 15 minutes after takeoff from Pokhara.
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2019: February. A helicopter crashed in bad weather in eastern Nepal, killing all seven people on board, including the tourism minister.
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2018: March. Fifty-one of the 71 people on a Bangladeshi passenger plane have died after crashing as it was about to land at the hill-ringed airport in the Nepalese capital.
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2016: February. Two people have died after a small plane crashed in the Kalikot district of western Nepal. Two days earlier, 23 people died in another crash on a flight from Pokhara.
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2014: February. Bad weather caused a plane to crash, killing 18 people on board.
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2012: September. 19 people died after another plane crash.