A plane carrying around 72 people on board has crashed near an airport in central Nepal and at least 64 bodies have been recovered.
The Yeti Arlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara crashed on landing, catching fire. A video of aircraft flying low over a populated area before spinning sharply has been making rounds on social media.
#Nepal
72 passengers were on board. Plane crash at Pokhra International Airport. pic.twitter.com/igBoObcCDm— Aishwarya Paliwal (@AishPaliwal) January 15, 2023
There were 68 passengers on board, including at least 15 foreign nationals, and four crew members. Several Nepalese soldiers are involved in the operation at the crash site in the gorge of the Seti River, just one and a half kilometres from the airport. In this regard, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called an emergency meeting of his cabinet and urged state agencies to work on rescue operations.
Last year, a Tara Air plane crashed in May 2022 in the northern Nepalese district of Mustang, killing 22 people. In early 2018, 51 people were killed when a US-Bangla flight travelling from Dhaka in Bangladesh caught fire as it landed in Kathmandua.
