A passenger airplane with 68 passengers and four crew members has crashed near Pokhara International Airport in Nepal. It is a Yeti Airlines flight. Rescue operations are underway. The airport has been closed. More details are awaited.
Pokhra is a city about 200 kilometres from Nepalese capital Kathmandu.
As per the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) Yeti Airlines’ 9N-ANC ATR-72 aircraft took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport at 10:33 am.
The aircraft crashed while it was trying to land at Pokhra airport. It crashed on the bank of the Seti river between the old airport and the new. According to Nepal Television, the passengers onboard the airplane had 10 foreigners.
Gurudutta Dhakal, a local official, told AFP that the plane wreckage was on fire and rescue workers were trying to put out the blaze.
“Responders have already reached there and trying to douse the fire. All agencies are now focused on first dousing the fire and rescuing the passengers,” Dhakal said.
Nepal government has called an emergency cabinet meeting in the wake of the plane crash.
Nepal, a Himalayan country, has some of the world’s most remote and trickiest runways. Many of these are located between high, snow-capped mountain peaks, something that throws up challenges for even the most experienced pilots.
Nepal’s aviation industry has been plagued by poor safety records. Insufficient training and maintenance are said to be the reasons.
Aircraft operators say Nepal lacks infrastructure for accurate weather forecasts, especially in remote areas with challenging mountainous terrain where deadly crashes have taken place in the past.
The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.
(With inputs from agencies)
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