Kathmandu, Nepal.- With no hope of finding any survivors, Nepal has declared a day of national mourning following the air disaster that killed at least 69 people, the worst such catastrophe to hit the country in three decades.
“Three bodies are still missing. The (search) operations were suspended for today. We will resume them tomorrow morning,” said Tek Bahadur KC, head of the Taksi district in Pokhara (center), where the plane crashed yesterday with 72 people on board, 68 passengers and four crew members.
“The hope of finding someone alive is nil,” he declared hours before, adding that during the searches, no black box was found.
Authorities found 69 bodies, and autopsies have already begun on 24 of them.
The Yeti Airlines twin-engine ATR 72 from Kathmandu crashed just before 11:00 a.m. local time near Pokhara airport, the gateway for trekkers from around the world.
The burning aircraft was found in a 300 meter deep precipice, between the old airport built in 1958 and the new international terminal inaugurated on January 1.
On board the plane were 15 foreigners: five citizens of India, four Russians, two Koreans, one Argentine, one Australian, one Irish and one French, said the airline’s spokesman, Sudarshan Bardaula.
After the accident, rescuers tried to put out the fire among the remains of the device, powered by two turboprop engines.
The reason for the crash is not yet known, but a video shared on social media shows the plane flying low over a residential area before banking sharply to the left, followed by a loud explosion.
Greg Waldron, an aviation industry specialist, stated that when he watched the video it seemed to him that one of the wings of the plane had suddenly “stalled”, meaning that it lost the aerodynamic ability to keep the machine in the air.
“When you’re at low altitude and you’re dealing with an incident like that … it’s a very serious problem,” said Waldron, Asia editor for FlightGlobal.
Terence Fan, an aviation specialist at the Singapore Management University, said it is impossible to determine whether the cause of the accident was a piloting error or a mechanical malfunction.
The pain
In front of a Pokhara hospital, Raj Dhungana, uncle of 23-year-old Sangita Shahi and one of the fatalities in the accident, spoke of the “pain” of the whole family.
“My niece was very talented. She was also an excellent student. She studied in Kathmandu. She ran a make-up center and an online business platform (…) God took someone so good,” he said.
In a statement dated Toulouse, in southwestern France, ATR, the plane’s manufacturer, specified that it was a 72-500 model, adding that its specialists were “fully committed to supporting both the investigation and the client.” Yeti Airlines.
Nepal’s aviation industry has grown a lot in recent years, but due to lack of staff training and maintenance issues, companies often suffer from safety issues.
The European Union therefore prohibited all Nepalese carriers from entering its airspace.
The Himalayan country also boasts some of the most remote and challenging tracks in the world, flanked by snow-capped peaks that make approaching them a challenge.
The companies indicate that Nepal does not have the infrastructure to establish accurate weather forecasts, particularly in the most remote regions and with difficult mountainous relief, where fatal accidents have been recorded in recent years.
Sunday’s is the deadliest accident in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed near Kathmandu.
