Passenger Plane Crashes At Pokhara Airport In Nepal, 40 Dead
Pokhara, 15th January 2023: A passenger plane crashed in Pokhara, Nepal on Sunday morning. 40 bodies have been recovered from the 72-seater plane. An army spokesman said that after more than 30 years, such a gruesome accident has happened in Nepal. Krishna Bhandari told Reuters news agency that rescue teams were at the scene and more bodies were expected to be found.
53 Nepali citizens, five Indians, four Russians, one Irish, two Koreans, one Argentine, and one French national were on board the plane that crashed at Pokhara airport in Nepal.
Yeti Airlines ATR 72 aircraft had taken off from Kathmandu to Pokhara on Sunday morning, but the plane crashed in Pokhara in the Kaski district. Rescue work is going on after the accident. For this reason, the airport is closed for the time being. At the time of the accident, there were 68 passengers and four crew members on board the plane of Yeti Airlines.
Airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said the ATR-72 aircraft operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines had 72 people on board, including two infants. Apart from this, four crew members and 10 foreign nationals are also included in the aircraft. He said that so far, information about foreign nationals has not been received. “We are trying to trace it, and hundreds of rescue workers are combing the accident site,” he said. He added that this is the deadliest accident in Nepal since 1992.
At the same time, Nepal’s ambassador in India expressed grief over the plane crash. “Deeply saddened by the crash of a plane carrying 72 people and crew members, including some Indians, in Pokhara. We express our heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this tragedy,” he said.
Yeti Airlines spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula told The Kathmandu Post that 68 passengers and four crew members were on board the Yeti Airlines aircraft. The plane crashed between the old airport and Pokhara International Airport. Some videos related to the incident are going viral on social media, in which smoke is seen rising from the burning aircraft.
Meanwhile, the Nepal government has called an emergency cabinet meeting after the passenger plane crash at Pokhara airport.
