At least 68 die in Nepali airplane crash

Jan. 15 (UPI) -- A passenger jet crashed Sunday near the Nepal city of Pokhara, killing at least 68 people, officials said.

The plane crash, being called the deadliest in the country in more than 30 years, involved an ATR-72 plane operated by Nepal's Yeti Airlines. Sixty-eight passengers were on board along with four crewmembers.

Nepal's civil aviation authority said that 53 of the passengers and all four crew members were Nepali. The plane also carried five from India, four from Russia and two from South Korea. The remaining passengers were from Australia, Argentina, France and Ireland.

The jet took off from Kathmandu to Pokhara, the country's second-most populous city located 80 miles west from the capital. Officials said the Pokhara airport was in contact with the plane 18 minutes after takeoff before it went down in the Seti River Gorge.

The Nepal Army and various police departments were deployed to the scene to carry out rescue operations, the civil aviation authorities said.

Tek Bahadur KC, the chief administrator of the district of Kaski, said rescuers struggled to reach the crash site because much of the smoke from the crash and it had gone down in a difficult-to-navigate gorge. Despite that, he said hundreds of rescues responded to the scene, where the plane had broken into three pieces.

Mainly situated in the Himalayas, travel by small plane in Nepal is common to reach different parts of the country. But poor visibility, rapidly changing weather conditions above mountainous terrain and aging fleets in one of Southeast Asia's poorest countries makes that flying challenging.