Nepal plane crash: what happened and what we know so far

A flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder have been retrieved from the crash site of the passenger plane that went down on approach to the Pokhara airport on January 15.

In Nepal’s deadliest aviation accident in over three decades, a domestic flight with 72 people, including five Indians, crashed into a gorge on Sunday while attempting to land at the newly opened international airport in the city of Pokhara, killing at least 68 on board. Passengers included 25 women, three children and as many infants. It remains unclear what caused the crash in non-windy weather, but the black box of the crashed aircraft was recovered on Monday.

A twin-engine ATR 72-500 aircraft of Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, with registration number 9N-ANC, took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in the capital Kathmandu for Pokhara at around 10:30 a.m., with 68 passengers and four crew members on board. Moments before its scheduled landing, the aircraft crashed between the old airport and the new airport on the bank of the Seti River around 11 a.m. — about 1.6 kilometres from the Pokhara airport.

The plane smashed into pieces and burst into flames after it plummeted into a gorge. The aircraft’s fuselage, mangled remains of wings and passenger seats were strewn across the crash site. A witness, Diwas Bohora, who recorded footage of the plane’s descent said he saw the plane flying low before it suddenly veered to its left and crashed. 

One of the plane’s wings reportedly hit the ground about 12 metres from a residential area, reported The Kathmandu Post. A witness told the newspaper that she was washing clothes in the front yard of her house when she saw the tilted plane. “The aircraft was tilted at an unusual angle and moments later, I heard a bomb-like explosion. Then I saw a plume of black smoke billowing from the Seti gorge,” Kalpana Sunar said.

Children playing outside also saw the plane spiralling down. Two 11-year-olds told the daily that they initially thought it to be a toy but ran away when the aircraft came close. “Suddenly, there was darkness all around. It looked like the aircraft’s tyre would touch us as it fell,” one of them said.

Another video capturing the last moments, purportedly shot by one of the Indian passengers on board, also surfaced online on Monday.

Soldiers from the Nepal Army, the Armed Police Force personnel, the Nepal Police and locals rushed in to search for survivors. Battling cloudy weather and poor visibility, they searched the wreckage. Ropes and stretchers were used to retrieve bodies, some burned beyond recognition, from the 300-metre (almost 1,000-foot) gorge.