The crashed twin propeller aircraft was built by France-based aircraft manufacturer ATR.
Kathmandu:
Nepalese authorities on Tuesday began handing over bodies of those killed to family members, two days after a Yeti Airlines plane with 72 people on board, including five Indians, crashed in the resort town of Pokhara, as the death toll rose to 71. happened.
Nepal Army spokesman Narayan Siwal said two more bodies were recovered from the crash site on Tuesday, taking the total number of dead to 71.
According to Nepal Army sources, one person is still missing and search operation is on to retrieve the last body.
The Yeti Airlines plane took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport on Sunday morning and minutes before landing, it crashed on the banks of the Seti river between the old airport and the new airport in Pokhara.
There were 53 Nepali passengers and 15 foreign nationals including 5 Indians and four crew members on board at the time of the accident.
The five Indians, all reportedly from Uttar Pradesh, have been identified as Abhishek Kushwaha, 25, Vishal Sharma, 22, Anil Kumar Rajbhar, 27, Sonu Jaiswal, 35, and Sanjay Jaiswal.
Meanwhile, 48 bodies, including those of crew members and foreign nationals, were brought to Kathmandu on Tuesday by Nepal Army helicopters.
According to airline sources, the bodies were taken to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajganj for postmortem.
The relatives of the victims will receive the bodies after the completion of the post-mortem.
In case of foreign nationals, the bodies will be handed over to the family members or the diplomatic missions concerned.
Family members of four people from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur who died in a plane crash in Nepal have reached Kathmandu to collect the bodies.
The relatives of the deceased were waiting outside the hospital to receive the body. Among them were Sanjay Jaiswal’s family members, Shambhu Jaiswal and Arjun Kumar.
Family members of the plane crash victims have been given counseling at the hospital premises, where security personnel were deployed.
According to Yeti Airlines spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula, the bodies of all the 22 Nepalese killed in the accident were handed over to their relatives from the Pokhara Academy for Health Sciences on Tuesday.
The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were both recovered on Monday as search and rescue teams descended a 300-metre trench to continue their efforts.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) records radio transmissions and other sounds in the cockpit, such as conversations between pilots, and engine noise. The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) records over 80 different types of information such as speed, altitude and direction, as well as pilot actions and critical systems performance.
The boxes were handed over to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN). The boxes may hold vital clues about Sunday’s accident.
Radio France Internationale reported that experts from the French accident investigation agency were expected to arrive in Nepal to help authorities investigate the crash.
The crashed twin propeller aircraft was built by France-based aircraft manufacturer ATR.
Sunday’s crash was the third deadliest in the Himalayan nation’s history, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network.
The only incidents in which more people were killed occurred in July and September 1992. Those crashes involved Thai Airways and Pakistan International Airlines aircraft and killed 113 and 167 people, respectively.
According to a press release, the newly appointed Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Sudan Kirati, visited the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) on Tuesday and inquired about the ongoing search operation.
He also directed the officers of CAAN to conduct the search work in a flawless manner.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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