A Twin Otter aircraft travelling from Pokhara to Jomsom lost signal with the control tower shortly after takeoff. It is believed that the passengers were mostly Nepali. There were three crew members and 20 passengers, one of which was Chinese and another a Kuwaiti. Two on board were children. The cause of the crash is still unclear, however, Nepal’s aviation industry does have a poor safety record.“Residents of Nepal’s Myagdi District saw flames shooting up from a forest and called security officials,” said Nepali Tourism and Aviation Minister Ananda Pokharel. Authorities arrived and found the plane’s wreckage. According to Sanjiv Gautam, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the plane’s wreckage was found near the village of Dana in Myagdi district. Guatam told the BBC that Nepali Service that the aircraft lost contact with the control tower at Pokhara 10 minutes after take-off. Tara Air put out a statement on their website stating that three helicopters were in search of the missing aircraft, adding that “the weather at both origin and destination airports was favourable” for the 20-minute flight. However, the Nepal army said that fog had hampered the search for the aircraft.In 2012, an Agni Air plane flying the same route from Pokhara to Jomsom crashed, leaving 15 dead and six survivors. A technical glitch prevented that plane from landing normally, said Bindesh Lal Karna of the Rescue Coordination Committee at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. The pilot decided to turn the plane around and head back to Pokhara, but as he did so, the plane dropped out of the air.
Post a Comment